Criticize? Complain?

So far, I’ve talked about bringing beauty and good into the world, but what about our bad feelings and the things we’d like to criticize or complain about?

I was 13 when I became a Christian. I was born again, thanks to a fundamentalist Bible study on Mark. I remember asking God and Jesus about my mind. Now that I was a Christian, was I just supposed to be a namby pamby person, thinking good thoughts, Christian, biblical thoughts? What about everything else? I struggled with this for years.

I had my first encounter with bipolar when I was 19. Whew! Sobering! I found that my bipolar tempered my fundamentalism. I found that Jesus wanted me to think in a well-rounded way. God didn’t make me a Christian to take away my mind, but to enrich it, make it more fulfilled. That includes being discerning and knowing when to criticize or complain, to hold out for a better world, by using every inch of my mind available. Complaining can be helpful sometimes. It can let off steam. It can move a person toward getting things done.

God, grant me the power to use all that I am, the inclination to struggle with even the parts of the world I don’t like, and the strength to interact with the world in a way that honors Jesus’ name, even if it means complaining or being critical on occasion. Amen. *MOTL (=more on this later)