Why do you complain, Jacob?
    Why do you say, Israel,
‘My way is hidden from the Lord;
    my cause is disregarded by my God’?
28 Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.

Listen to how ‘The Message’ puts it?

Why would you ever complain, O Jacob,
    or, whine, Israel, saying,
“God has lost track of me.
    He doesn’t care what happens to me”?
Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening?
God doesn’t come and go. God lasts.

Why would we ”ever complain”? But we do. Some people make a lifestyle of complaining, and, it has to be said, they tend to not be all that likeable or popular. They start to grate on others with their constant ‘whining’. But it should be added, I think, that many of us who complain little outwardly, may actually be great complainers inwardly. Have you really listened to your own internal conversation recently?

”Why do you complain…’

The Bible shows that God’s people can and do complain, and He is patient with our human frailty. But when we do complain (and especially if we start to complain about Him), is it not because we are forgetting important theological truth about the Lord?

Do God’s children have any legitimate cause to complain about their good Father?

‘Complaining is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but it doesn’t get you anywhere.’ Van Wilder.