Spoiled Brat

Have you ever asked God for something only to complain about how He answered? I have to say I get pretty irritated when my kids complain about something I gave them. But am I any different?

I was laying in bed, couldn't sleep. Was having contractions that seemed they were to lead to labor. I had been having contractions for 13 days prior to this praying that it would lead to labor. I was feeling sorry for myself and my situation and started changing my mind about having going into the labor because the situation wasn't "ideal". As I laid there I was thinking it wouldn't be the best time because Cody had malaria. That night, I was asking God that there would be a breeze because it was so hot in the house and I was drenched in sweat. About an hour later a nice breeze made it's way into the house. Then I started complaining because there was this abhorrent smell coming with it. In the field just above our house a dog had died and it's rotting carcass had brought a horrible smell inside our house. Seconds after I was disgusted.......it hit me. "You aren't happy with anything are you?" Lots of previous ideas of this same unsatisfied character crept up into my mind. The complaining, the sense of entitlement, the selfishness, the position of a spoiled child.

You could look at our short time of 5 months here and think they have come with a lot of trial and hardship. Compared to what? My life back in America? Newsflash..."You're not in Kansas (Colorado) anymore." Billions of people live way below the way I live and yet I still complain. And what about all the ways God has answered my prayers. What about what He has done and not what He hasn't. I needed to repent.

It can be difficult to go against the culture I was raised in thinking that I deserve to live a certain way. That when things don't go my way I can manipulate something to make it go my way. You see life isn't like that here. We can't just "fix" your problems. We have to have a deeper reliance on God for our needs. This is actually quite a blessing. So why am I complaining all the time? "God do this my way." How sad for me because this attitude makes me miss how He provides in other ways. Big ways. I've been so blind.

God has done some amazing things during our time here and answered our prayers in ways we had never expected, not to mention in the process we have grown in ways that are inexpressible.
Funny how I asked God to give me deeper faith like Habbakuk but wasn't prepared or grateful for the answer. (Wow this goes deeper than I thought :)

Habakkuk 3:17
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places.

Seriously I have lived through none of these things Habakkuk describes. Am I going to let the joy of the Lord be my strength as Nehemiah says or I am going to be tossed about by my situations, and be held captive by my untrustworthy emotions and lies of how I think I should be living?

How sad it is that we can miss the many blessings of God because of our "brat" attitude.

2 Corinthians 4:8
We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.

1 Peter 1:6-7
In this you greatly rejoice, through now for a little while, if need be you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ,

I could give 10 more scriptures but you probably get the point.

Michaela