Complaining When You're Commenting

REAL ISSUE: ‘I’m just making casual conversation!’

‘nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer.’ I Corinthians 10:10

RESEARCH AND STUDY

Do you realize how often people complain in casual conversation? Remember, complaining means to protest, whine, find fault, nitpick, nag, object, and criticize. But you can be engaging in small talk and someone will comment about how hot it is. Ask someone how they’re doing and you’ll get a litany of ailments. Compliment someone and they’ll tell you how inexpensive the item you just complimented really is. Let’s not even bring up President Obama and the economy. The common denominator in each example – complaining. You may not have intentionally set out to complain, but by your casual conversation you ended up there.

Or let’s use another example of commenting when you’re actually complaining. Say for instance a man is unattractive. The object of his affection commented to her friends he was so ugly that he looked like a backyard frog. What she said – was it a complaint or a comment? If you answered both, you’re correct. We learned in our last issue that another definition of complaining means to curse and when you curse you are saying something bad about someone. So you see her comment while having a casual conversation with her friends was actually a complaint.