Real Men Don’t Complain
Here’s what they do instead
The good king never complains.
About anything.
Ever.
Complaining keeps you from the life that you want.
When you complain, you’re off-loading the responsibility for the facts of your life to something or someone “out there” and you’re avoiding the thought patterns and behaviors that may have contributed to the things you’re complaining about.
The spirit behind a complaining man goes back to one of the oldest stories in the Bible.
The first man born to a woman - Cain, was “very angry and his face was downcast” at the conditions of his life in Genesis 4:5.
It became evident to him that his life was not being blessed in the same way that his younger brother Abel’s life was. Abel was “sacrificing properly” and God was blessing him, and Cain had avoided the proper sacrifices, and his life wasn’t going so well.
If you’ve ever looked at your neighbor’s life and wondered why things are going well for him and you’re left struggling without purpose, you might be familiar with the resentment that began to rise up in Cain.
I know I am.
The hard thing about not sacrificing properly in your life is that YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS.
It’s strange.
You probably can’t even articulate it.
You probably don’t even know it at the level of conscious awareness, but there’s a part of you that knows that you haven’t gone “all in” on life.
You haven’t sacrificed “properly”.
The resentment that rose up in Cain when he observed his brother’s life is familiar to all of us if we’re willing to take a hard look.
God told Cain that “sin crouches at the door” —a lustful, feral animal that desires to HAVE him.
This is a weird reference in Genesis 4.
The Hebrew word for the desire that sin has for Cain is the same word used to describe Eve’s desire for Adam. It has sexual overtones and a primal quality to it.
Sin is like that.
It’s a lustful feral beast crouching at the door of our consciousness, desiring to come in and have it’s way with us.
WOAH.
When we’re faced with the realization that the patterns of our life have been insufficient, have been found wanting, sin is RIGHT THERE, with a ready answer about why IT”S NOT YOUR FAULT.
It’s the fault of someone OUT THERE.
Maybe you don’t follow that seething resentment all the way to the terrible slaying of your brother, like Cain did.
Or maybe you will.
Jesus says in Matthew 5:21-22 that if you harbor anger towards your brother, you’re just as guilty.
How much of your complaining and resentment comes from knowing that you could have gone all in, and didn’t?
The lustful feral beast of sin crouches at the door of your consciousness, wanting to have it’s way with you.
But you can overcome it.
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Some years ago I found myself in this position.
I was seething with resentment about the facts of my life.
I was broke, overweight, and felt trapped in a career that wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t feel good in my body. My back hurt, and I had a constant pain in my belly that kept me up at night. I was frustrated that life hadn’t turned out the way I wanted it to, and I fretted that it was too late (and too difficult) to change all of that.
My wife bore the brunt of my dissatisfaction, hearing me whine and complain morning, noon, and night. She was gracious enough, but inside I knew she wanted me to man up and take ownership of my life.
I could see her feminine softness harden as she fielded my pitiful complaints.
One of my mentors listened to me rage about the unfairness of it all. After listening to me passionately detail out all of the insufficiencies in my life, he looked at me gently and said firmly:
“dude… you’ve got to let it go.”
A pause.
“Let it go!”
“You’ve got to forgive. Yourself, others, God. Whoever you’re holding hostage… let it go man!”
Pfffff … you could almost hear the air leak out of the balloon of my wounded ego.
“Nothing is going to change in your life as long as you think the culprit is out there somewhere.”
Pffff… more deflation.
It turns out he was exactly right.
Instead of taking responsibility for the conditions of my life, I was expending energy blaming something “out there”.
The most loving thing my mentor could do was to hold up a mirror to me and help me see how pitiful my seething rage was.
And how misguided.
Notice your desire
So what do should you do if you’re tempted to complain?
First, pay attention to what it is you’re complaining about.
The things you are tempted to complain about? They reveal something really, really valuable.
Something essential.
They reveal your DESIRES.
You probably haven’t taken time or had the courage to look at what you really DESIRE.
As men, we avoid paying attention to our desires out of fear that they will wreck out lives.
But avoiding them, stuffing them down, complaining about our lives - that’s the real danger.
We clamp our thumb down on the end of the garden hose, trying to shut off the flow of desire, thinking if we can just STOP feeling desire, we can stop sinning and finally get our life right.
You can’t stop the flow of a garden hose with your thumb. Eventually the water squirts out somewhere, and you’re going to get all wet.
You can’t stop up the flow of your heart’s desires either. Avoiding them, ignoring them, trying to stop them up and shut them down: that’s a recipe for disaster.
One way that your desires leak out is in the spirit of complaining and resentment.
That’s a valuable gift.
When you’re tempted to complain about something, just pause and ask: what’s the underlying desire that I’m feeling?
I want something that I haven’t made clear to myself or anyone else.
What is it?
Notice your desire. It’s begging to be noticed.
Name your desire. It’s demanding to be named.
Evaluate your desire in the light of Love.
Does this desire seek the flourishing of God’s kingdom, of others, of myself, today, tomorrow, and into the future?
Does it lead to life?
If not, it’s a false desire, planted there by the enemy. Confess it. Repent of it.
Perhaps the false desire has grown because a seed has been planted through your act of worship.
Have you been worshipping at the idol of a false god?
Worshipping money, sex, power?
And by worshipping, I mean, giving your attention and your heart to it.
If you give your attention to a false god, destructive desires will grow in your heart.
On the other hand, perhaps your desire is good!
Perhaps it is a part of the vision that God has placed in you to be realized in his kingdom. Maybe he wants to bring this into fruition through you.
When you walk in the way of Jesus, God redeems your imagination and places a new heart in you.
From that heart flow desires for good and flourishing.
If the desire you have noticed is a desire that leads to flourishing, for God’s kingdom, for others, for you, then have the courage to name it.
Speak it.
Commit it to God.
Ask God what He wants you to know about that desire. What does He want to bring into fruition in the His kingdom through your redeemed imagination?
See, we ALL have desires.
Avoiding our desires - whether they are selfish desires or life-giving desires - leads to frustration, resentment, and a spirit of complaining.
Suppressing our desires—avoiding them, is a common pattern I see in men, and the sadness, complaining, resentment, and emptiness is heart-breaking.
Perhaps you protest, and say: “I really have things to complain about… You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
You’re right.
You do have things to complain about.
Things I know nothing about.
So did our example, Jesus.
He had a lot to complain about.
No one who deserved it LESS was ever treated so poorly.
And yet he didn’t complain.
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Learn to lament
How did the King (Jesus) deal with the pain?
Grieve.
Lament.
Cry out to the Father.
Surrender.
Life isn’t fair.
There are things you can’t fix.
Pain you can’t avoid.
Loss that can never be recovered.
Lament!
Groan your sorrows to God.
Express your deep sadness to the Creator who knows what you are carrying.
Then, when you have emptied your sorrows onto the One who knows sorrow,
Take Up Your Cross
“Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ”
Jesus teaches us that to be his disciples, we must pick up our cross daily and follow him.
When you pick up your cross you’re not avoiding what is.
You’re taking responsibility for what is.
You’re taking ownership of your attitude, your choices.
No one to blame.
No bitchin’ in the kingdom.
When we complain about things, we’re offloading the responsibility for the outcomes in our life to someone else. We’re short-circuit our “becoming” and staying trapped in our patterns.
Complaining is the opposite of radical ownership (responsibility).
When you bear the cross of all of the facts of your life - the family you were born into, the circumstances life has brought you, and the choices you have made - then you can simply surrender to what is, and stop blaming others.
From a place of surrender, we move into a place of curiosity:
"God... teach me how you want to use this in my life to make me more like you".
"God, show me how you can help me regulate my nervous system without reaching for the forbidden fruit".
"God, where are you at work in my life right now?"
"God, show me the evidence of your love in my life."
Surrender, lament and godly sorrow is the true path of transformation when we come face-to-face with the things that we are tempted to complain about.
Blaming and complaining is saying life's not fair, life sucks, and it shouldn't be this way.
That thinking short-circuits the transformation of your heart that God had in mind when he allowed this in your life.
Practice curiosity
Try listening to yourself for 10 days and notice what you’re tempted to complain about. Then approach that thing with curiosity.
"Hmmm.. I feel like crap right now, normally I would complain about it... but what is God teaching me with my crap feeling right now?”
“What is the desire that is being revealed in my temptation to complain?”
“What are the patterns in my life that might be leading to my crap feeling?”
“What are the inputs that are creating these outputs?”
“God, teach me how to move into a healthier pattern in this area”
“Put a stake in the ground today and commit to never complain about anything, to anyone, ever again. Especially not to your wife. ”
Put a stake in the ground today and commit to never complain about anything, to anyone, ever again.
Especially not to your wife.
Express your true desires, in love.
Confess your fears to her, in love.
Speak the truth, in love.
But never complain.
Pick up your cross.
Go all in.
Sacrifice properly.
Everything that’s not aligned to love? Gotta go.
You got this.
Jesus is right here.
He lives in you.
He loves you.
He will bear this burden with you.
You were born for this.
Let’s go.
“All of the things that I was so resentful about—complaining about— have proven to be opportunities for me to be transformed. ”
In the years since I’ve personally put a stake in the ground and committed to never complaining about anything, my life has changed for the better in a multitude of ways.
First of all, my wife respects me.
She sees the work I’m doing to face my fears, name my desires, and be transformed in love.
She sees the things I could complain about, but don’t, and she admires me for it.
She does everything she can to help me WIN.
The desires I came to recognize lead me to get healthy. Mentally, spiritually, and emotionally healthy. They lead me to quit my corporate job and start the business I had longed for all these years.
All of the things that I was so resentful about—complaining about— have proven to be opportunities for me to be transformed.
The commitment I made lead me into a deep initiation into true masculinity.
It burned away the weakness and the falsehood, and what was left was something I’m happy to see: A man in union with God, living in my gifts and my calling, surrounded by those I love the most. Seeing the kingdom of God and experiencing His healing presence in my life.
That’s what I want for you too!
If you want to surround yourself with other men who are committed to a path of true masculine initiation in Christ, consider joining our community: The Good King.
