“Grumbling is born of conceit.”
~ James Basford
Definition of conceit: Excessive pride in oneself; excessive appreciation of one’s worth or virtue.
Grumbling is not innocent
August 8, 2019 | 26 comments
Spiritual ideas that inspire healing
Grumbling : A call for help. I am frightened! I feel forgotton. Don’t want to knock this out of the Ball Park at the very start but recently heard this which explains all expressions that aren’t joyful. “There are only one of two things ever going on. Either a person is expressing love or asking for love.” I believe it’s from A Course in Miracles. Even extreme acts of violence are desperate calls for help.
You reminded me of the lesson of Moses and Aaron in the wilderness with the murmuring children of Israel when Moses explained that their murmuring and grumbling was really against God – or rather their belief limited understanding of God. A powerful message for today!
Love your contribution, and thank you, Evan, for starting this discussion.
I love being among all of you Seekers.
Gratefully & joyously !!!!
Thanks for this! Very timely.
I’m in a situation with a neighbor who has been acting erratically. As he was paying me to watch his dogs, the situation was more complicated. He is now acting ugly and I’m working to see him s God’s perfect child; it’s being a challenge. But this post helped me realize I’ve been exacerbating things by grumbling! So, I will rectify that.
When we are grumbling, we surely are not seeing God’s perfection. In fact we are so mesmerised by error, that we forget everything about reality, about the beauty, the bounty and the innumerable blessings showered by God in our life. Grumbling is not being faithful to God. Such a state of mind is not good for our spiritual well being.
It’s therefore so important to be porter at the door of thought. Our daily prayers help us to be attuned with the spiritual reality, our true identity and that of everyone as pure and spiritual. When we have the armor of righteousness, then error in any form cannot reach us, or mesmerise us.
Thanks so much Evan for this timely inspiration. It surely helped me, since I was drifting into this habit of grumbling. Deeply grateful to you for daily addressing the exact problems we face, for uplifting our thoughts and helping us to be better and holier.
Summer traffic here, which will peak in the next two weeks, has already caused steady grumbling. Thank you for this which reminded me of “Gratitude is riches, complaint is poverty.” (From a hymn?)
Thank you for bringing ” grumbling” into the Light! I’m so grateful for the insights shared.
Penny, it’s hymn 249…
Evan, gratitude is always the answer.
Thanks for your constant help.
Evan, thank you so much for this posting, and also to Lynn for her insight. Especially helpful this morning.
Sometimes it’s difficult to love the ‘actor’ not the ‘act’. Thank you for this reminder Evan and for all the contributors thoughts, it all helps.
Spirit View similar to Wed service and Sunday School…begins with Lesson and followed with expressions of gratitude.
So look forward to opening each time to hear the message(s).
Thank you, Evan, for this unique gift of love.
Spirit View similar to Wed service and Sunday School…begins with Lesson and followed with expressions of gratitude.
So look forward to opening each one.
Thank you, Evan, for this unique gift of love.
Evan, thank you much for this very humbling post. I feel that I will have to do quite some soul-searching… Who would like to be conceited ?
Thank you Evan and Everyone for your comments. A few months ago I started having a pain in the heel of my left foot. I prayed about the situation and at first the condition improved but then it got worse. It caused me to limp noticeably and people at work asked me what was wrong. In the past when I’ve prayed about something and didn’t see improvement I had a tendency to get very discouraged and depressed (i.e. grumbly). At first that was what happened in this case too. The condition continued to get worse and then I started having pain in my right foot too which made walking very painful. The SpiritView on July 18, 2019 (and the sentinel article Eleanor and Béatrice shared) made me aware that we don’t need to go on a mental “hunt” for what error needs to be corrected when we are praying to resolve some discord in our experience. We only need to study and pray to know what is true about ourselves as God’s image (idea) and that process will naturally reveal to us whatever error we may be holding to in thought. Once the error is revealed, we can pray as taught in Christian Science to realize the truth that the error we are holding to in thought seems to be hiding. In my case, I realized a discouraged and depressed and grumbly attitude was not Godlike and therefore that attitude was an error that I needed to dismiss from my thinking. The following versus from the book of Galatians (5:22,23 ESV) in the Bible came to mind:
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
It came very clearly to me that if I wanted to see Spirit (God, good) reflected in my experience then I needed to demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit and be more joyous, patient, good, faithful, etc. So that’s what I did. And I want to point out that I didn’t use human will to be more joyous, etc., when in my thinking I was miserable. I actually realized I was embraced in the love of God, regardless of what the material senses were telling me, and that realization naturally made me more joyful, peaceful, patient, etc. It really is conceit that would trick us into thinking we can know something that God doesn’t know.
The pain didn’t go away immediately, but I didn’t let the pain stop me from doing whatever I would normally do. For example, when working in my garden, I would thank God and be joyous for all of the good God provides me as I took each painful step. But once I started doing this, it was if the pain didn’t matter to me anymore. As I continued steadfastly to keep my thought centered on the fruit of the Spirit, in a few days the pain was eliminated and now I can again walk limp and pain free!
Thanks again to Evan for sharing this truth-filled blog with us and for everyone that shares their own individual expression of Truth, Life, and Love through this blog!
Meant to write “verses” instead of “versus”. 🙂
I love your testimony, Brian. Thank you for sharing it and for sharing how you prayed. This is precious.
When I saw this post I thought, wow, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing lately, grumbling about the traffic!!! Later in the evening I realized that I had been feeling a bit cranky all day and the grumbling seemed a natural offshoot from it. Wow…going to watch my thoughts more closely and on any day that I’m feeling cranky I need to step up my game, and apply the truths I read on this Spiritview, Daily Lifts, and Bible Lessons. I’m reminded how grateful I am for those, as well as the many articles on jsh online and links/suggestions shared by our wonderful, loving group:) Thanks Evan and all.
I am struggling to see the connection of conceit and grumbling though, as quoted above.
“It really is conceit that would trick us into thinking we can know something that God doesn’t know.” Thank you, Brian, for clarifying the connection of conceit and grumbling!
Thank you, all…a very helpful reminder . Gratitude not grumbling shows us the way out and leads us forward in our day.
I read this statement and love it…”Let our finite judgement never settle on WHO is troubling us, and never defend ourselves against a person. Rather ask WHAT is troubling us, and then meet the WHAT.”
“Error is not a person, place, or thing.”
What a bad habit , grumbling. While we are complaining , we are missing the beauty and joy that God has for us each moment. I don’t want to miss it! Thank you all for sharing the truth .
Thank you Evan, for your inspiring, uplifting and healing SpiritView. It is not only what Evan teaches us through SpiritView but also all the comments which are so helpful! Thank you all for it.
I also would say ‘.’Gratitude is richness and complaints or grumbling are poverty”.
Gratitude is a vital aspect in our healing ministry!
Interesting is the explanation of ”conceit”
So instead of grumbling, we need more humility, to be healed of grumbling.
How grateful can we be for Christian Science teaching us how to correct error in.order to be healed!
I agree Uta❣️Thank you
God is Love. He loves us, all that we can only know is met and known to God. He is pleased with us and She cherishes us as precious and gives us no cause to grumble about. God is satisfied and contented with us and we are happy living in this infinite consciousness of Love.
Well I sure needed that. I was with a friend and too concerned about getting all I had to do done. I was less than pleasant, not patient. To make a long story short, after reading the comments, I texted my friend about my behavior and have no excuses and I prayed to have more of the mind of Christ and less less of self. Thank you All!
Brian, Thanks for your testimony. Dealing with two types of pain – physical,(leg) and mental (relationship) still boils down to your next to last pragraph. Thank you. It is w orking for me, too! Of course!
A very experienced practitioner once said to me, “Irritation is hatred.” It really was an arresting thought, very much like this Spirit View Post, which has stayed with me when I see or am tempted to feel irritated, or ‘grumbly’ which are of the same ‘ilk’.