“Ugh, that sounds just like me!”

When I easily thought of things to grumble about, it didn’t cheer me up. Hmmm. I didn’t like my habit of complaining. One day, King Saul and King David came to mind. God impressed on me to compare these two men’s reactions to life, according to I Samuel. Following are a couple examples of my written list. Under the heading SAUL IN PALACE, I wrote, “feeling sorry for himself; mind on himself.” I had never noticed before that Saul was a complainer. Under DAVID IN CAVE ON THE RUN, I wrote, “sought God all the time; trusting God helped him chase away fear.” And the clincher:   just a few days earlier I had a similar thought as King Saul had in I Samuel 23: 21 “At last someone has had pity on me!” Ugh, that sounded like me. My prayer became, “Lord, please help me to be grateful and be close to You like King David.” It’s easy for me to fall back into complaining, but intentional awareness and God’s indwelling Holy Spirit have helped me to take a breath, and then look for things to be glad about. More than I used to, anyway. I love the gentle way God helped me. No, that’s not me in the photo.