8/5/2015 – Wednesday of the 18th week in Ordinary Time – Numbers 13:1-2, 25–14:1, 26A-29A, 34-35

      I remember that I was at a meeting once when there was someone there that complained about everything imaginable.  One of the people turned to me and said:  “He complains more than the Israelites did when they were traveling through the desert.”  Yes, it does seem like the people of Israel complain a lot, don’t they.  They always seem to see the glass half empty rather than half full.  They seem to see negativity in just about everything.  For that reason, that generation was not allowed to enter into the promised land.  After I spent time overseas as a missionary, that was one of the things that struck me most when I returned to the United States:  We American can sometimes grumble and complain about a lot of things, even when we have it better off than many others in the world.   Are we that way in our lives of faith, too? Do we complain to God about just about everything?  Are we never content with what we have?  Does the grass always seem so much greener in someone else’s backyard?  Let us find joy in our faith.  Let us sing praises to God.  Let us be thankful for the blessings that we have.  It is so easy to complain, but I don’t think it is so difficult to be joyful.