Manna Again? Retraining a Grumbling Mind in a House That Is Good Enough

Listen to yourself walk through your own house for one ordinary day.

The bathroom door sticks again. This kitchen is too small to turn round in. Who chose these tiles? The second bedroom is basically a cupboard. The water pressure is a joke. The neighbours’ dog. The heat. The damp patch. The road.

Most of us would not describe ourselves as complainers. But if someone kept a tally of the things we say about our homes, the grumbles might outnumber the thanks by a wide margin. And the house we complain about is often a house we once prayed for.

Tired of the miracle

In Numbers 11, the people of Israel are in the wilderness, fed every morning by manna that God sends from heaven. It is, by any standard, a miracle. Bread on the ground at daybreak, enough for every household, day after day.

And they are sick of it. They start remembering the fish they ate in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic (Numbers 11:5). Now, they say, there is nothing at all to look at except this manna.

Notice what has happened. Slavery has become a memory of good vegetables. Provision has become monotony. The miracle is still arriving every morning, but they no longer see it, because they have trained their eyes on what is missing.

Homes can do this to us. The first week in a new place, we stand in the doorway and marvel: our own front door, our own kitchen, no landlord knocking. A year later we are listing its faults to visitors. Nothing about the house has changed. Something in us has.

Minds are trained, one way or the other

Paul tells the church in Rome not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of their mind (Romans 12:2). The word renewing suggests an ongoing process, not a single event. The mind is always being shaped by something. The question is what.

Complaining is a kind of training. Each time we name a fault aloud, we make it a little easier to notice the next one. Our children pick it up, too. A child who hears a parent say every morning that this house is too small grows up believing that small means inadequate, and may carry that into a lifetime of chasing more space than they need and more debt than they can bear.

Gratitude is also a kind of training. It does not come automatically, especially for those of us wired to spot problems. It has to be practised until it becomes a habit.

Practising at home

Paul gives another instruction, this time to the Philippians, that works almost like a checklist for a grumbling household. Whatever things are true, noble, just, pure, lovely and of good report, he says, meditate on these things (Philippians 4:8).

Try walking through your home with that list in hand. The small kitchen is where your mother taught your daughter to make dumplings last Easter. That is lovely. The cramped second bedroom has sheltered a nephew between jobs and a friend after her divorce. That is noble. The roof that leaks in one corner has kept out every other drop of rain through three hurricane seasons. That is true, and worth saying.

Some families find small habits help:

• At the evening meal, each person names one thing about the home they were glad of that day.
• When a complaint comes out, follow it with a thank-you. “This door sticks, but thank God we have a door that locks.”
• Keep a list on the fridge of repairs you are grateful to have finished, not only the ones still waiting.

Gratitude is not pretending

None of this means we should never fix the sticking door or dream of a bigger kitchen. Honest assessment of a house is part of looking after it. And for some people, the problem really is serious: mould that makes a child ill, a landlord who will not repair a dangerous stair, a home that is not safe. Naming those things clearly and seeking help is not grumbling. It is wisdom.

The difference is the direction of the heart. The Israelites were not wrong to be hungry. They were wrong to look at God’s daily provision and see nothing. Gratitude simply insists on seeing both: the damp patch and the forty years of shelter.

Tomorrow morning the manna will still be on the ground. The question is whether we will notice.

For reflection

• What is the complaint you most often make about your home, and what is the gift hidden inside it?
• What are the children in your house learning about home from the way the adults speak?

Father, forgive me for grumbling about the shelter you have given. Renew my mind. Open my eyes to what is true and lovely in this house, and let our home be known for thanksgiving. Amen.

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