Avoiding A Critical Spirit

It’s summertime folks. And the heat of Texas is here. And that heat causes many to be on edge—on edge enough to gripe or complain about the smallest of things. Do we have any complainers here today?

This coming November, I will have been pastor here at SEBC for 27 years. Through those years I have withstood a lot of behind the scenes grumbling. It's funny how most of the grumbling and complaints don't surface in front of other people. It always seems to be done under the table, or behind closed doors, or through letters, private phone calls, or emails. I have received them all over the years.

I have thought deeply about each incident and have pretty much come to the realization that most all these complaints or these grumblings come from people who are simply not happy with themselves. They need someone to take it out on. So, I guess the pastor gets to be the sounding board.

Some of the comments that have been made over the past years can really bring a person down, especially a pastor. But those complainers seem to think that a pastor doesn't have feelings or a life of his own. In all these cases I have put it in God's hands and in one way or another God has clearly taken care of each situation.

It's not that I am beyond criticism. But some of the responses I have received over the years could have caused some serious damage to our relationship and our larger work for the kingdom of God.

There is a place for honestly confronting others when done in a loving and gracious way. Yet maturity means learning to guard our hearts from an unhelpful, critical spirit, as we'll learn in this story of Miriam and Aaron's criticism of Moses. Prayer

Numbers 12:1-3 – “Miriam and Aaron criticized Moses because of the Cushite woman he married (for he had married a Cushite woman). 2 They said, “Does the Lord speak only through Moses? Does he not also speak through us?” And the Lord heard it. 3 Moses was a very humble man, more so than anyone on the face of the earth.”

A grumbling and critical spirit was all too evident with the Israelites throughout their journey in the desert. The people had an uncanny ability to find something to complain about - and their griping was often aimed at their leader, Moses. We find that not only did the complaints and griping come from throughout the Israelite people, but it also came from some of Moses’ closest relatives, his sister and brother, Miriam and Aaron. Something I noticed right off is that Miriam's name is mentioned first which says that she was likely the one leading out in this criticism.

Miriam and Aaron were the older siblings of Moses. Their major complaint is voiced here in the first 2 verses of Numbers 12. They were first critical of his marriage to a Cushite woman. But this first complaint was only a smoke screen to what they really wanted to complain about.

They had a deeper motivation for complaining. “Does the Lord speak only through Moses? Does he not also speak through us?” Maybe they were jealous of Moses stature as Israel's recognized leader. Maybe they felt slighted and not given enough credit for their own accomplishments. Whatever the reason, their critical spirit toward Moses was fueled by comparing themselves to their younger brother.

It tells us that Moses was a humble man. He would probably have been more than eager to share the platform with his siblings and anyone else. In fact, in the previous chapter, Moses expressed his desire that all God's people would have the Holy Spirit in their lives even as he did.

Numbers 11:29 – “But Moses asked him, “Are you jealous on my account? If only all the Lord’s people were prophets and the Lord would place his Spirit on them!”

But all that Miriam and Aaron could see was God's apparent favor of Moses at their expense. They had lost sight of the ways the Lord had also powerfully used them. For example, many knew Miriam as the prophetess who sang a powerful song exalting the Lord who rescued them from their pursuers when they left Egypt. Aaron was the mouthpiece for Moses before Pharaoh, and was installed as the first high priest of the Lord.

Yet sadly, because they were so fixated on how God was speaking through Moses, they forgot the important ways God also spoke through them to lead Israel. Their eyes could only see through the lens of what they lacked instead of all that they had. As they compared themselves to Moses, that comparison stole their joy and brought about their critical spirit.

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If you have anything to do with Facebook, you can see that most any social media seems designed for comparing ourselves to other people. That tells me that limiting our time on social media would be a good idea. Just a thought. We don't need to compare ourselves to anyone. God has made each of us in our own unique way. God will meet you where you are in order to take you where He wants you to go.