Are you ever tempted to grumble?
Some thoughts my friend Shawn Tyler recently shared from
1. You can’t answer the question, “Where are you from?”
2. You speak two languages and can’t spell either.
3. You have to add additional pages to your passport.
4. You watch National Geographic specials and recognize someone.
5. You would rather eat seaweed than cafeteria food.
6. You think in grams, metres, and litres.
7. You have strong opinions about how to cook bugs.
8. You have friends from or in 29 different countries.
9. You do your devotions in another language.
10. You are grateful for the speed and efficiency of any postal system.
11. You stockpile mangoes.
12. Your idea of fun is playing Scrabble in another language.
13. You think Tom Landry is still coaching the Dallas Cowboys.
14. You feel comfortable sitting in a mud hut with a manure floor.
15. You speak to Americans on the phone and can’t remember an English word.
16. You feel more comfortable sleeping under a mosquito net.
17. Blood banks won’t take your blood because you have had malaria, typhoid, and hepatitis.
18. You can track through jungle without difficulty but get lost in a mall.
19. You get excited about receiving Kool-Aid in the mail.
Now just what was that you were about to complain about in your warm, lighted, comfortable, safe, bug-free, healthy, well-stocked, close-to-friends-and-family abode?
The glory of the comments above is that my missionary friend is not complaining. He loves what he’s doing. And where he’s doing it. Not for an instant is he wanting us to sympathize, saying, “Oh, you poor soul! What a hard, miserable task God has given you.”
I share his reflections, hoping they will help us in all our affluence to grumble less and thank God more.