Whining

If My people, who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14.

There are 20 days left before the November 2 general elections. That puts us at the midway mark of the 40 days of prayer and fasting. I'm not sure about you, but 40 days doesn't seem like that long for me to master all the skill sets required in my humbling, praying, seeking and turning so that God can do His part. But, I'll give you the good news up front in this segment. This is like riding a two-wheeler bike. You take the training wheels off and fall. You try. You fall. You try. You fall. You try. You fall. But then one day, suddenly, you can ride the bike. Oh sure, there will still be a few falls and a couple of major crashes. But, they won't keep you from getting back up on the bike, because you know you have places to go.

But, success is not the topic for today's devotional. It is not unusual for me to get a spark of an idea for a devotional when my mind is actually engaged in other activity. Experience has taught me to jot the idea down for future mulling over. Yesterday the spark was "whining." The thought came to me in mediation over 2 Chronicles 7:14 in the section where it says that God will "… hear from heaven…". If the conditions for God hearing are the "humble, pray, seek and turn" issues, then if we pray without doing those things can God hear us?

It brought two thoughts to mind. First, our oldest basset hound is the master of whining. Yes, he can bark and howl with the best of them, but his favorite form of communication is whining. We refer to it as murmuring. If he wants his spot on the chaise lounge, he whines. If he wants food, he whines. If he wants in or out, he whines. When he whines too much, I wine. (Just a little alcohol humor there to see if you are paying attention.) Anyway, nothing seems to solve the problem of his whining, other than giving him what he wants or banishing him to his crate and ignoring the additional whining that ensures. In the interest of true confession, more times than not I cave in to shut him up. I need to work on that.

The other thought that came to mind was the way whining was handled with my children. It was not tolerated. When a young child of mine whined, they got one warning that, "Mommy can't hear whining. If you want something, you have to speak up." After that, mommy became deaf to all the whining in that conversation. Being really quick learners, they gave up the whiny voices.

As teenagers the whining was not so much tone as, "It's not fair."

Mom's response, "Life is not fair. Deal with it."

And the conversation was over unless they actually had some concrete facts to bring into the conversation.

So, my question is this, when we are praying and using either the whiny tone or the life's not fair card with God, can he hear us?

Lord, deliver me from whining and whiners. Remind me to keep to the facts in my prayer life.