The Danger of Complaining

question is it possible to lose your soul through complaining you know through whining is it possible to like go to hell for whining or it's possible to go to hell for complaining hi my name is father mike schmitz and this is ascension presents a lot of times we think that what would cost us our soul are only the really really big things or only the kind of the massive sins that would be like grave sins or mortal sins and in some sense that would be the case but is it possible for there to be small things that we hold on to so fully that they begin to hold on to us and i think that complaining or grumbling or whining i guess is a is a great example here's and here's why um because i think it's well in st paul's letter to the philippians he says do everything without grumbling or complaining now he doesn't say that if you do complain if you do grumble then you're going to hell that kind of thing he doesn't say that but it indicates that there is something in grumbling there's something incomplete there's something in whining that if left unchecked can do something to us that we ultimately well talk about st louis st louis i'll talk about cs lewis in a second that c.s lewis says there are some people who ultimately end up becoming a grumble instead of just grumbling something they do they become a grumble instead of complaining as something they do they become a complaint now in order to talk about this let's clarify some things first thing is that we recognize there's a there's a positive power to complain right there's a positive power to grumbling for one there might be a situation where complaint is required like it's necessary to complain why because um there's something that needs to be said right there's an injustice that is being done and someone needs to point that out and someone might say you're just complaining well no i'm pointing out the truth i'm pointing out the reality that this thing over here is wrong and so i need to complain about that also another thing could be um it's just being authentic or being honest i said i'll say it like this now there's a way to be honest and complaining that's the minnesotan way which is a passive-aggressive way where we just kind of like floated out there that the ability to kind of complain without complaining you know that kind of thing that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about the complaint that actually can be helpful which is i'm telling you straightforwardly that's the right word way to say it i'm telling you in a very clear way here is where i'm at with this whole project here's where i'm at with this whole process here's where i'm at with this situation and for open and honest relationships that might need to be said so complaint can be um helpful when it comes to like and there's an injustice that needs to be called out it can also be helpful when there's something going on inside of me or in our relationship here that needs to be spoken in fact we can recognize that um complaint can be a gift we have to say this there are times when complaint is a gift when complaint is a positive force in this world great done we agree i think on that moving on is it possible though for complaint to be something that not only is now destructive to relationships not only is destructive to uh the positive steps forward but actually can be something whereby we might lose our souls and i think the answer is going to be ultimately yes i think there are some times when we're complaining or we're grumbling or we're whining and we can maybe do it in one of two ways or maybe more ways one is this is how i see the situation and there's no remedying the situation and i'm just going to see all the negatives that's all i'm going to do i'm just going to see the negatives i'm going to see the things that are wrong or that i see as wrong and what i'm doing is i'm limiting my perspective i'm limiting how i see reality to all of the negatives that's one thing and that we realized like that's a distortion of reality that's a distortion of how things actually are if i only see things through the lens of the critic then i am not actually seeing things truly i need to be able to acknowledge both the the goodness and the badness the the wholeness and the brokenness of every given situation if i only always point out the negatives then again i'm not seeing this situation truly the second thing is i might see that as my role i might see like oh my role here is i'm the i'm the one who always points out the truth and i'm the one who always complains i'm the one who always has to be that gadfly nothing is good enough for me and we can actually end up enjoying that role so much so that it becomes a part of who we are and he said this this can happen to every one of us there are times when for all of us as i said i'm a relatively positive person where i recognized there were a moment there was a moment where i started complaining and i became the complaint i started grumbling and i became the grumble so quick story time with father mike years ago uh my mom wanted family photos with all of the family right so with my two parents and all the kids and all the spouses and all the grandkids and everyone and so um they had my mom had color-coded polos for everyone to wear so she and my she my dad had a certain color of polo shirt and and this family had certain color this man and then the single kids my oldest sister my little brother and myself we all had another color polo like oh we're the single kids club and so the color wasn't a color i would normally pick for myself and at first i just started like joking about a that oh we're all the single kids having to wear the same color and b this is such a lame color and i remember joking with my sister-in-law about this and thinking like oh yeah here's this color this is so stupid blah blah blah blah and then pretty soon that joking became like something where i was actually it was souring my heart for lack of a better way to say it it was something that i began to believe it was something i began to resent it was something i began to like keep on complaining like i oh man thanks be to the lord for the rest of my family because they were able to rise above my complaining and i even myself couldn't rise above my complaining i started to complain all of a sudden i became the complaint i started just joking about it and all of a sudden i realized i can't stop joking and actually not only can i not stop joking i now believe all the things that i was saying about like how awful stupid how dumb all these kind of things all this criticism about this color the color of polo that i was wearing it's so dumb right now but i remember even at the moment saying oh my gosh what is happening i can't stop i have now become this complaint and i realize that left unchecked any one of us that can be any one of us whether that's embracing resentment and now i've become resentment that's embracing anger and now i've become this anger embracing a certain jealousy or envy and now like i can't let go of it i'm not holding on to it it's holding on to me every single one of us can so c.s lewis as i mentioned in his book uh the great divorce which is just one of my favorite books of all time he talks about there's this choice between heaven and hell and there's this character who is encountering a person from heaven who has come to like convince them to choose heaven and all they can do is complain all they can do is grumble and it's it's uh indicator it's uh represented by this what c less calls a tragedarian so this this person who sees everything as a big tragedy sees everything as this big and there's nothing good enough there's nothing that is is real there's nothing true there's nothing good there's nothing that can be praised it can only be complained about and this person this tragedy becomes bigger and bigger as the actual person becomes smaller and smaller and smaller and even though the invitation is let go of the grumble let go of the complaint let go of this drama the tragedarian right the person who embraces tragedy grows bigger as the other as i said is as the actual person grows smaller and c.s lewis in talking about this he writes this he writes he says hell actually so again is it possible to lose your soul over grumbling or complaining he says hell begins with a grumbling mood always complaining always blaming others but you're still distinct from it right that's how i was with that that polo shirt you're still distinct from it but he goes on to say you may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it again that's exactly what was happening to me i'm like why am i saying this i love my family this is a decent shirt it brings out the color of my eyes whatever whatever i'm just joking anyways he says but there may come a day when you can no longer it begins with this thing outside of you but there may be a day when you can't stop there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it but just the grumble itself going on forever and ever like a machine it's not a question of god sending us to hell in each of us there is something growing which will be hell unless it is nipped in the bud in each of us there is something growing which will be hell unless it unless it is nipped in the bud and that's why i bring up complaining but it could be anything could be anger it could be lust it could be greed it could be envy it could be any one of those things that is not of god or even if it's initially of god remember there's a positive power of complaint but unless i surrender it to jesus unless i repent to the lord and say god do something with this we won't be holding on to it it will hold on to us and there might not be any us left other than the grumble other than the complaint other than the whining other than whatever that thing is and that will have the potential to have the power to take our soul to take us and replace it with this caricature of us thanks be to god i mean thanks be to god for jesus christ because what he gives us is he gives us not the ability simply to not complain or not to have anger not to have lust not to have this frustration or resentment but he gives us the grace to be able to turn to him and say lord help me in this complaint help me in this anger help me in this frustration help me in this envy or greed or whatever the thing is free me from it so i can be free to actually be the person you created and redeemed me to be from us here at ascension presents my name's father mike god bless [Music] you

Channel: Ascension Presents

Views: 129,298

Keywords: stop complaining, bad habits, breaking bad habits, st paul, christians, habit of complainging, how to stop complaining, do you complain too much, danger of complaining, fr mike, fr mike schmitz, fr mike schmitz complaining, father mike, father mike schmitz, motivation to stop complaining, optimistic, focus on the positive, stop complaining motivational video, how to stop complaining about everything, catholic, catholic preist, catholic priest, catholicism, catholic advice

Id: 34GU2drBYOI

Length: 10min 9sec (609 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 30 2021