Gonguzo (Gong good-zo)

It was the wilderness wanderings all over again. Only this time the leader is not Moses, but the prophet Moses said would arise from the people (Deut.18), Jesus the Son of God. The scene has been reenacted. The cast of thousands have been assembled and they play their parts perfectly without a script, without knowing they are reproducing a scene from Israel's past. Right on cue they started grumbling (gonguzo). It is human nature to grumble and complain. Discontent runs deep in the human soul/flesh. Solomon wrote, "All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. That which has been is that which will be, and that which will be done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun." (Eccl. 1:8-9)

If the people of Jesus' day had simply understood what was playing out right in front of their eyes surely their discontent would have dissipated. But, because it wasn't making sense to them they gonguzoed. How could this Jesus say he came from heaven when we know he came from Nazareth. They knew is father and mother, proof that he was full of it. And, once the grumbling starts it always spreads from one to another to another to another until a family or a church is ruined. Discontent breeds discontent. It doesn't take much to suggest to another that things could be better, and that the grass is always greener on another side.

Many things cause discontent. In Matthew 20 in a parable Jesus tells of those who worked for various lengths of time, from 12 hours to 1 hour, and all received the same pay. Who do you think grumbled? It wasn't fair. We had to work longer and harder than another. Or, in Luke 5:30 some Pharisees complained because Jesus was eating with tax collectors and sinners and not with them. (Some think I spend too much time in the community among the sinners and not enough time with the church...ummmm.) In John 7:32 the tables were turned. Here the crowd was murmuring (talking lowly among themselves) about who Jesus was and it was not squaring with the Pharisees. But, the clearest connection is with the Israelites in the desert. In 1 Cor.10:10 Paul tells the grumbling Corinthian church to stop it lest the same thing happens to them as happened to their ancestors in the wilderness.

Grumbling and complaining is serious business. It does not become a Christian who has been given everything they need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3), even if they think they are lacking something in this world. Paul learned the secret of contentment, and it is not found in perfect circumstances. We must open our eyes and learn to appreciate the Jesus who is right before our eyes and know He and He alone satisfies.