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I pour out my complaint before him. "Before God we may speak out our minds fully, and name the persons that afflict, affront, or trouble us." True religion must be genuine. What a man really does feel he ought to be able to express. Reserve is the bane of friendship; it is of our friendship with God. A friend should be free to tell his friend precisely what he is feeling, even when the feelings are neither good nor right. It is healthy and hopeful when there is such confidence between child and mother that the child can tell its bad thoughts and wishes as well as its good. When there is absolute confidence in the love of God to us, there can be free utterance before him of our bad moods as well as of our good. And seeing that the best of men are subject to human frailties, are influenced by bodily states, affected by changing circumstances, and mastered by peculiarities of disposition, he could be no God to us at all who could only bear relations to conditions and moods which represented us at our best.

I. A SPIRIT OF COMPLAINING NEED NOT BE WRONG. It often is the proper and natural response to surrounding conditions. As natural as the response we make to things that are pleasing. To be tempted involves us in no wrong. To be set upon complaining need not involve us in wrong. To complain is a part of our complex human nature. The man is below his full manhood who is unable to complain. He does not feel in response to his circumstances as he ought to.

II. A CHERISHING OF THE SPIRIT OF COMPLAINING MUST BE WRONG. When the spirit is awakened in us, we have to deal with it. And everything depends on how we deal with it. If we keep it, nourish it, brood over it, it exercises a mischievous influence on us, it grows into an evil far worse than itself, it excites to envious and unworthy conduct towards others. Keep to ourselves the complaining spirit, and a spiritual "dry rot" will be sure to get into our souls.

III. PUTTING COMPLAINT INTO PRAYER PROVIDES SAFETY AND RELIEF. It is evident that prayer must include more than petition. Prayer is really the expression of the soul's confidence in God. And there is no fuller sign of confidence than telling freely our complaints. And yet doing so is a request for the Divine intervention and help; only in telling our trouble we wholly leave with God the way in which our circumstances shall be dealt with. - R.T.

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KJV: I poured out my complaint before him; I shewed before him my trouble.

WEB: I pour out my complaint before him. I tell him my troubles.