Little Suzy had known more adversity in her six short years than most people face during a lifetime. Partially paralyzed by a stroke, she had recently lost both her parents, and now she faced an MRI to determine if she had a brain tumor. The day of the test, after carefully instructing her to lie very still, the technician placed the uncomplaining little girl into the MRI machine. But as images were being taken of her head, the radiologist heard a muffled voice and noticed that Suzy’s mouth was moving.
Gently reminding her that she must lie still, the test was restarted, only to be stopped when once again there was the faint sound of her voice with that same slight movement. Becoming a bit impatient, a technologist slid her out of the machine and sternly said, “Suzy, you were talking again, and that causes blurry pictures.”
The little girl gave her a crooked smile and said, “I wasn’t talking; I was singing. You said no talking.”
After a moment’s surprised silence, another nurse asked Suzy, “What were you singing?”
The whispered reply came back, “ ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ I always sing ‘Jesus Loves Me’ when I’m happy.”
This touching, humbling story reminds us of how easily believers can get caught up in a spirit of complaining and grumbling. Such a spirit is not of God, for His beloved children are to “be . . . thankful” (Col. 3:15), to “rejoice evermore” (1 Thess. 5:16), to “comfort” others who are “in any trouble” (2 Cor. 1:4), to have full joy (1 John 1:4), and even to take “joyfully the spoiling of [their] goods” (Heb. 10:34).
We are “redeemed . . . with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19), loved individually and eternally by the Son of God (Gal. 2:20), have been given “exceeding great and precious promises” (2 Peter 1:4), and have been blessed “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). Surely an unhappy, complaining spirit does not befit those so richly blessed. May each one seek grace to be able to say with the beloved Apostle Paul, “For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content” (Phil. 4:11).
Ed.