Whiners

In the Hebrew Scriptures, Job becomes a whiner, filled with self-pity. He sees himself as someone who kept the rules, but his life is not working out free from suffering and misery. Isn't it the good people who become whiners? I mean if you are really rotten then you would not expect good things to happen, so you would not whine when misery comes. You expect misery as part of the payoff for being a rotten person. But good people, those who think themselves good, expect God to pay up for their being good. God owes. Whining comes for these people when God does not seem to pay up.

I am sure this happens a lot, but I never hear people confess whining or self-pity. It is so embarrassing to admit that you are a whiner. I am a whiner! No one gives whiners much sympathy. If you lie, or gossip, or are impatient, or disobey authority, people might find these faults acceptable in the sense that they might still accept you with your faults and encourage you to keep trying. But whiners are just told to grow up or shape up. Being a whiner is lonely. You have no friends. Even whiners do not like to be around other whiners.

What to do? Well if there is good news in all this, it is that God knew Job was a whiner filled with self-pity, but God loved Job anyway. Nothing, even embarrassing and shameful whining could turn away God's love. I like that.