We could go on. Do we show hospitality without grumbling (1 Peter 4:9)? Most of us have enough social tact to avoid grumbling at guests, but do you harbor resentment and bitterness toward your husband (or wife) or your kids because of all of your labor? Do you have an edge about you? Do you find yourself thinking, Nobody appreciates all that I do. Nobody appreciates how many details I manage, how much time I spend trying to make everything special?
Of course, this isn’t to excuse ingratitude and selfishness in others. But we may not use the failures of others to justify our own disobedience. A difference exists between addressing sin and grumbling about unaddressed sin. And a difference exists between addressing sin directly and passive-aggressively murmuring about sin. Do we do all things without grumbling and complaining?
In the end, we remember a simple truth: God loves a cheerful giver, not a grumbler. He loves cheerful obedience, not murmuring and complaining obedience. Such obedience, especially when things are hard, signals God’s grace to us, a sign that he is at work within us to produce an obedience that shines, an obedience that makes apostles proud and God happy. So as you obey, do so all the way, right away, with a happy heart.
We can widen and press this into family and parenting. If you’re a father, try this scenario. You’re in one room working on something. Could be your job, could be the honey-do list. From the other room, you hear the quarreling break out. Or you hear your kids talk back to your wife. And you listen for a minute to see if it will resolve itself. And it doesn’t.
And so now you must interrupt your work to go deal with it. You’re the head of the home, and it’s your responsibility to reprove, correct, and discipline. You’ve resolved to obey God. But will your obedience shine? Are you going to walk into a big mess of sin and bring more sin? Because grumbling obedience, frustrated obedience, exasperated obedience is disobedience.
As parents, we’re called to bring up our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, in the teaching and admonition of Christ. Do we pursue that task with joyfulness and gladness of heart? Do we do it heartily, as unto our Lord? Or are we regularly asking irritably, “How many times do I have to remind you to pick up your room or take out the trash?” Well, how many times does God have to remind us to shepherd our children with joy, to be his smile to them?
The same standard applies to our children. Children, do you honor and obey your parents all the way, right away, with a happy heart? Or do you wait to obey until your parents have answered all your questions first? Does your obedience come with a side of back-talk?
We can press this truth into our marriages. Simply put, grumbling obedience is a marriage killer. Mumbling exposes that you’re in the comparison trap and that you’re keeping score. Which of us has the tougher job? Who has sacrificed more? Grumbling and complaining is an outworking of self-pity, that subtle and sneaky form of selfishness.
And we sometimes wield such self-pity as a tool of manipulation. We wield our sacrifices as a weapon to get our way. We try to steer others by our complaining. We recognize this when we’re the target of the manipulation. We know that someone is seeking to steer us by throwing a pity party. And we should ask ourselves hard questions about it. Has such manipulation ever brought us deeper into joyful fellowship with the grumbler? Did it ever call forth the gratitude and joy that it supposedly sought? Of course not.
But seeing such manipulative grumbling in our spouse is the easy part. The hard part is recognizing it in ourselves, removing the log from our own eye, and treating others the way that we want to be treated.
So ask yourself, “How am I doing with my marital obedience? How am I doing with those marital vows? Having and holding, in sickness and in health?” Husbands, how is your leading and loving? Wives, how is your honoring and obeying? What’s the spirit beneath your obedience? Grumbling and disputing? Or glad-hearted and grateful?
Is there a hitch in your efforts to love and give yourself to your spouse? Do you find yourself muttering under your breath while doing the dishes or complaining to friends about your husband or your wife? Are you keeping score? Or are you keeping short accounts? Will the record of wrongs from last week follow you and your spouse into next week?
We each have various sources of hardship and frustration in our lives. It might be a boss or a co-worker. It might be a tone of voice or an annoying habit from your spouse or child or parent or sibling or friend. It might be a deep unmet desire, like the desire to be married.
Whatever the frustration, how often do you find yourself attempting to obey God while muttering and murmuring about the hardship? How often is there a hitch in your obedience, or an edge to your obedience, or self-pity in your obedience? It’s like we say to ourselves, I will do the right thing, but there will be enough reluctance and grumbling accompanying my obedience that everyone will know what it’s costing me.
Now some of us grumble directly about God. “Why is he doing this to me?” Or we grumble about our circumstances, conveniently “forgetting” the truth that nothing comes into our lives except by his hand. Others of us grumble about people. We disguise our complaints against God by focusing them on the people around us. And we have all sorts of rationalizations for this. “I’m not grumbling about God; I’m just being honest about the failures and sins of other people.”
This is precisely where we must press. It is important to distinguish faithful groaning from ungodly grumbling, lamenting from sulking. Groaning and lamenting can be good and right. They can be faithful responses to real pain. So what distinguishes them from grumbling and sinful complaining? Often, it’s honesty. Do we take the pain to God directly, or does it come out sideways, as complaints about God’s wisdom disguised as observations about other people?
The key question here is: where does the pain go? Do you bring it to God, as part of offering yourself totally to him? Or does it simmer on a low-boil in your soul, and come out in a frustrated service and sulky obedience?
A major temptation for the obedient is to murmur and grumble in our obedience. That’s why Paul says to do everything without grumbling or disputing, without murmuring or complaining, without sulking or arguing, without whining or backtalk. A temptation for an obedient people is to offer frustrated, grumbling obedience.
In other words, Paul is clear that how we obey matters. The spirit beneath our actions matters. God’s standard and expectation for us isn’t merely to obey. It’s to obey all the way, right away, cheerfully. All the way, right away, with a happy heart.
This means that partial obedience is disobedience. Delayed obedience is disobedience. And grumbling obedience, irritated obedience, frustrated obedience is disobedience. And it’s crucial for us to press this truth into the corners of our lives.
If you were giving an exhortation to an obedient people, what temptations would you urge them to guard against? Most of us would likely highlight the danger of pride and self-righteousness. And we’d be right to do so.
In his letter to the Philippians, Paul is addressing an obedient people. Unlike the Galatians or Corinthians, Paul does not write to them in order to rebuke and correct substantial failures and errors. Outside exhorting a few quarreling women, there isn’t a hint of “You foolish Galatians!” (Galatians 3:1) or “Are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?” (1 Corinthians 3:3). Instead, to the Philippians, Paul says, “As you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence” (Philippians 2:12). The Philippians are an obedient people.
So how does Paul exhort them? What does he see as a key danger for this obedient people?
Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. (Philippians 2:14–16)
Hal Turner is reporting that US senators were all just given satellite phones “in case something happens where they cannot use cell phones.”.
He is also saying:
High Level US politicians will be vacationing memorial day weekend with their families at various undisclosed “Continuity of Government (COG)” locations.
People are supposed to be at the destinations no later than May 27, 2023
Amid growing concerns of security risks to members of Congress, more than 50 senators have been issued satellite phones for emergency communication, people familiar with the measures told CBS News. The devices are part of a series of new security measures being offered to senators by the Senate Sergeant at Arms, who took over shortly after the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.The satellite phone technology has been offered to all 100 senators. CBS News has learned at least 50 have accepted the phones, which Senate administrative staff recommend senators keep in close proximity during their travels.
In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee last month, Senate Sergeant at Arms Karen Gibson said satellite communication is being deployed “to ensure a redundant and secure means of communication during a disruptive event.”
Gibson said the phones are a security backstop in the case of an emergency that “takes out communications” in part of America. Federal funding will pay for the satellite airtime needed to utilize the phone devices.
I’m a 23-year-old woman, very much in love with my husband of six months. He’s a 32-year-old man. I’d say the marriage is a very happy one, and things are going well. We waited until marriage for sexual intimacy, and it’s since become a daily thing. My husband had previously been in relationships, some that were sexual, but this is all my first experience with it. I’m starting to worry something’s wrong with me. I’ve not enjoyed it once, in our entire marriage. My husband is a very sexual man. He’s easily turned on by me, even when I’m not trying, and he’s very happy to have sex a few times a day, when he can. I don’t have any problem with that; in fact, I greatly enjoy knowing I can please him so well, but I never feel anything. He’s tried a few different things, from oral stimulation, to fingering me in different ways, but I’m unable to feel anything except the occasional bit of pain. I also have never been able to become aroused, emotionally or physically, for him. I love to please him, but sex just doesn’t matter to me itself, and neither does seeing him naked, for instance. He’ll prance around the house, in a desperate attempt to get me going, but it does nothing. He asks what worked when I masturbated in the past, but I never did. There was just never any interest, on my part. That really shocked him.
The more I think on it, the more confused I get. I think he has a very handsome face, but that’s where it ends. I’m not attracted to him sexually. I’ve never been attracted to anyone sexually, and I’m only just realizing that. I have no desire to kiss or do anything physically intimate with anyone. It’s not just him. I haven’t exactly explained that to him yet because I’m honestly scared. He’s so sexual, and he’s distressed enough as it is, thinking he can’t please me, but I don’t know if it’s possible. Am I broken somehow? I have absolutely no experience in sexual matters, and I’m so confused. I’ve lived such a sheltered life, I don’t know what to think. I’m scared he’ll regret marrying me, if I tell him he’ll never be able to please me the way I do him. It means so much that he cares, and wants to please me, but I almost wish he didn’t. If he just focused on enjoying himself during sex, it’d be better for the both of us. I love to make him happy, and I’m not sure I’ll ever feel anything anyway.
Paying attention to stressful thoughts may help you reduce them.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction is a strategy that involves becoming more self-aware of stress-provoking thoughts, accepting them without judgment or resistance, and allowing yourself the ability to process them (23Trusted Source).
Training yourself to be aware of your thoughts, breathing, heart rate, and other signs of tension helps you recognize stress when it begins (23Trusted Source).
By focusing on awareness of your mental and physical state, you can become an objective observer of your stressful thoughts, instead of a victim of them (24Trusted Source).
Recognizing stressful thoughts allows you to formulate a conscious and deliberate reaction to them. For example, a study involving 43 women in a mindfulness-based program showed the ability to describe and articulate stress was linked to a lower cortisol response (25Trusted Source).
Therefore, try adding mindfulness-based practice to your daily routine for better stress management and reduced cortisol levels.
SUMMARYPracticing mindfulness can help you identify stressful thoughts and better manage them. Mindfulness-based practices such as meditation may help you reduce stress and lead to lower cortisol levels.
Depending on the intensity of exercise, it can increase or decrease cortisol.
Intense exercise increases cortisol shortly afterward but will decrease a few hours later. This short-term increase helps coordinate growth of the body to meet the challenge. Additionally, the size of the cortisol response lessens with routine training (19Trusted Source).
Regular exercise has been shown in numerous studies to help improve sleep quality, reduce stress, and improve overall health, which can help lower cortisol over time (20Trusted Source, 21Trusted Source, 22Trusted Source).
Interestingly, regular exercise has also been associated with greater resilience to acute stress and may lower negative health effects associated with stress, such as high cortisol (20Trusted Source).
That said, overdoing it can have the opposite effect. Therefore, aim for around 150–200 minutes of mostly low- to moderate-intensity exercise each week and allow yourself time to rest between workouts.
SUMMARYExercising regularly can help you better manage stress and promote good health, which may help lower cortisol levels. That said, avoid overdoing it and aim for around 150–200 minutes of low- to moderate- intensity exercise each week.
Persecution Live 