We Detest This Worthless Food

We Detest This Worthless Food

So as I wrote this, I realized, how much I've read similar posts and how authors said lift up your work.  So for awhile I thought I was "lifting up the work" but realized how my tiny actions were not aligned to it. 

I never realized how much I complained. Not enormous complaints — small, everyday ones. Not enough of this, not the right quality of that. My husband's habits. My boss's leadership style. My colleagues' way of working. How long the elevator took. Decisions made by people I'd never meet. Why someone else seemed to get the better job, the easier life. It became a pattern so consistent that it eventually got me into trouble — and that was the moment I finally saw myself clearly.

It reminded me of a story in Numbers 21. The Israelites, freed from slavery and on their way to a promised land, grew impatient with the journey. "We detest this worthless food!" they cried — tired of the manna, tired of the wilderness, tired of waiting for something better. Their complaining wasn't really about the food. It was about control, about wanting the journey to look different than it did. And when I read that, I recognized myself in the crowd.

God's response wasn't to fix the complaint. He told Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." The healing wasn't in getting what they wanted — it was in looking somewhere beyond themselves.

That's what shifted for me, eventually. I realized my complaints were rooted in wanting things done my way — expecting people to work in my style, meet my standards, move at my pace. I was pouring my energy into how things should be, instead of pouring my strengths into the work itself. So I made a decision: I would offer my work — my actual effort, skill, and care — not to prove myself, not to control outcomes, but to God. Not for me. For Him.

The moment that shift happened, something loosened. The work felt lighter. It had a different kind of purpose behind it — not "will this go the way I want," but "I'm offering this fully, and what happens next isn't mine to hold onto." My anxiety eased. The tightness I used to carry into meetings and deadlines eased with it. And strangely, more work came — more beautiful work, more meaningful opportunities — once I stopped gripping so tightly and started offering instead.

I'm not saying I've arrived. I'm human, and I still catch myself slipping back into old complaints now and then. But I no longer live there. And Matthew 11:28 comes to mind often now: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Rest doesn't always mean the circumstances change. Sometimes it means you change — how you carry the work, who you're really doing it for.

If you find yourself complaining more than you'd like to admit, maybe the invitation isn't to fix everything around you. Maybe it's to look up, offer what you have, and let the rest be lighter than you thought it could be.