Do you ever catch yourself feeling frustrated, negative, irritated, or mentally drained throughout the day?

In this episode of Faith Fueled Living, Kristin explores how complaining quietly shapes our mindset, steals our joy, and affects our emotional and spiritual well being more than we often realize. What starts as venting, frustration, or focusing on what’s wrong can slowly become a habit that impacts our peace, relationships, perspective, and connection with God.

This conversation dives into the biblical warnings about grumbling and the deeper heart issues that complaining can reveal, including dissatisfaction, misplaced focus, comparison, stress, and lack of trust. Kristin shares practical encouragement for shifting out of negative thought patterns and becoming more intentional about the words we speak and the thoughts we repeatedly entertain.

You’ll also learn why gratitude is far more than a positivity practice. It is a spiritual discipline that can help reframe your perspective, strengthen your faith, and help you notice God’s goodness even during difficult seasons.

If you’ve been feeling emotionally heavy, stuck in negative thinking, overwhelmed by daily stress, or struggling to find peace and contentment, this episode will encourage you to shift your focus, guard your mindset, and begin cultivating more gratitude, joy, and emotional freedom in your everyday life.

Takeaways

• How complaining can slowly affect your mindset, peace, and emotional health
• Why negativity often becomes a habit without us realizing it
• The biblical perspective on grumbling, gratitude, and the power of our words
• How complaining may reveal deeper issues like stress, dissatisfaction, comparison, or fear
• Why gratitude is a daily practice, not just a feeling
• How to become more aware of negative thought and speech patterns
• Simple ways to shift from frustration into thankfulness
• Why your focus shapes your emotional and spiritual experience
• How gratitude can help you experience more joy, peace, and contentment
• Encouragement for women who feel emotionally drained, stressed, or overwhelmed

Get the Create a Life You Love Journaling Wokrbook to start being more intentional with your life and schedule here.

Grab the Rewire Your Mind: From Negativity to Joy- download here.

Grab the Joy Rising- Daily Gratitude & Joy Journal here.

Download My Free Joyful Living Devotional: https://kristinfitch.com/devotional

Ready to take your first step towards a more joyful, faith-filled life? Download our Reignite Your Passion Workbook and start living with purpose today!

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If I asked you to count the number of times that you complain in a day, could you add up the number?

Could you count how many times you're actually complaining about your life, about a situation, a circumstance, a person, or about yourself personally?

Today, we're going to dig into what is complaining costing you.

Welcome to Faith Fueled Living, the podcast that equips you to live well spiritually, emotionally, physically, and purposefully.

Each week, we'll dive into conversations and biblical truths to help you strengthen your faith, pursue meaningful work, hearing for your whole self, and live in line with what matters most.

All right, let's start off with a little bit of honesty here.

I am not a complainer by nature, but the honest truth is that I find myself sometimes complaining.

Or I find myself using language that is much harsher.

Harsher and surely sounds like complaining to me.

Or it's just.

It's not the words I actually mean to use, but it's the words that come out of my mouth.

For instance, I could be talking about something not important, not about a person, nothing that has real impact, except for the fact that I spoke the words.

And as we know, the Bible tells us that words have the power of life and death.

Sometimes I find myself saying, I hate that, when in reality that's not true.

I don't hate the thing I'm talking about, but I use that language.

And more recently, I've been catching myself because it could be a food that I don't like, but instead of saying, I don't prefer that, why am I saying I hate that?

And while that might not be a direct complaint, it's extreme language.

The same thing happens to us, I think, when we complain.

We may not mean to complain, but we find ourselves grumbling about something, or we find ourselves irritated or dissatisfied, and then we say the thing like, that person's driving me crazy.

But then if you add up the number of times in a day you're speaking words of complaint, right, or dissatisfaction, it adds up.

And the question is, what is it doing?

What is the ramification of that?

So first, I'll start off with a popular Bible verse about this, which is Philippians 2, 14, 16.

And it says, do all things without grumbling and disputing in order that you may become blameless and innocent children of God without fault, in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation among whom you shine as stars in the world, holding fast to the word of life for a source of pride to me in the day of Christ that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.

But the thing is, Jesus shows us we shouldn't grumble.

And actually in John 6, 41, 43, it wraps up with actually, I'll just read it now.

The Jews began to grumble about him because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven.

And they were saying, is this one not Jesus, son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?

How does he now say, I have come down from heaven?

Jesus answered, said to them, do not grumble among yourselves.

Once again, we need to monitor our mouths.

And please let me be the first to say that this is an issue for me too.

Not all the time, not every moment, but it does creep in.

I do complain when I don't realize it sometimes, and it's usually not a complaint where my heart is with it.

Like I find that I'm normally complaining about very small things.

But the question is, why?

Because I'm speaking it, right?

I'm speaking about the thing instead of just saying it's fine or it's not my.

It's not my preference, but it's okay.

Or just accepting the thing, right?

The circumstance or the person for who they are or where they are at in their own journey, right?

Of healing and of just faith or whatever it might be.

Okay, so I want to share with you what Daryl Black, I think online he goes by Mr. Daryl Black, but he's a pastor and he says complaining isn't just a bad habit, it's a sign of misplaced focus.

And I think that's so true.

It's just like I said, sometimes when I find myself complaining, I'm actually not meaning to complain.

And it's not even something that I'm super bothered by.

But I've let the.

I have let words bring complaint from my mouth, even when it's not something of importance.

And I don't want to be that person.

I'm not saying we're never going to say something that's frustrating to us, that's different.

But then he goes on to say, when all you see is what's wrong, you lose sight of what God is doing.

And the opposite of complaining is to give gratitude.

And he says gratitude doesn't ignore reality, it recenters it.

And when one of the reason that I created one of my free workbooks that you can download is called Let me grab it here.

It's called Joy Rising.

But it's a daily check in for gratitude, joy and seeing God's presence in your life.

But it's just a.

It's just a little download.

You for each day, it just.

You take a couple minutes and some of you probably have already done gratitude journals or you just write down something you're grateful for every day.

And that's amazing.

But the more that we stay in a place of gratitude, the less we're going to stay in a place of complaint or grumbling.

It's super important, but.

And the more that we see God being present in our lives, right?

Him moving in our lives, and the more that we can take joy in the little things throughout the day, the more we are going to change what we focus on and change our words, both in our minds and what we speak and into the world.

So this is actually much more important than we sometimes let on or say that it is.

And I'm not saying we're going to be perfect at this, but the.

It's much like I've said in many other solo episodes.

It's when we get intentional and then we notice, right?

There's an art of noticing things, both the beauty in the world of God's creation.

Notice what's behind what people say, what's behind their emotions, what.

Noticing how we go through our day, right?

So noticing everything is actually important.

That is a skill.

That is a thing that we want to develop.

It's a muscle, if you will.

But we also want to notice how we're speaking, what we're thinking about.

Do we always get pulled to this negativity or this complaining or grunt grumbling, or are we filled with so much awe and wonder and gratitude for.

For God and everything he's created and for just the beauty in relationships, the gifts of everyday moments of being present with people, being present in nature.

When we can start noticing and paying attention, that's when we can start shifting the way we're thinking and speaking.

And it will change our lives, I promise you.

And something that I wanted to share is Pastor Jason Laird shared this.

Let's see, let me find it on an episode that's just that I just aired.

So two things he says is when you're discouraged, go back and remember the faithfulness of God.

That's why we give God thanks and that's why we give gratitude.

The other thing is we want to encourage ourselves by remembering what God's already done, right?

Which is similar.

It's just a little bit different.

Like what prayers has he answered?

Where has he blessed us, whereas he provided for us?

And so that's.

That's what we're talking about here.

And it's.

And like I said, it's so important.

And a great place to start is go download my free [email protected] go to the workbooks page and grab that Joy Rising, the daily worksheet or daily check in.

All right, next, I want to share with you another scripture.

And it's 1 Thessalonians 5, 16, 18.

It says, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God.

Increase Christ Jesus for you.

So once again, when we keep our focus on prayer and giving thanks and, and giving gratitude or, you know, practicing gratitude, that's when we stop focusing on what culture shows us and tells us and what, what the pressures of the world are.

And it remind of everything that God has for us and that where, where he wants us to stay, right?

Like with our, our thoughts, our how we feel, right in our soul.

And so it, this is why we talk about this.

And now I'm going to jump into contentment and how those two things tie together.

So contentment and gratitude, right?

They go together.

And so I like what this, this idea that said on a site called Wisdom Hunters, whatever that is.

But it says contentment is to rest in Christ, trusting He is in control.

Right.

The key there is trusting.

And it says circumstances, good or bad, are an opportunity for him to show himself faithful.

And that's kind of the idea.

It says contentment is not passive or uninformed, but rather engaged and educated.

It's not anxious.

It replaces worry with work, pity with prayer, pride with humility, and grumbling with gratitude.

Right?

So that's how it ties together.

When we have peace, when we know that God is going to work in and through us, no matter what's going on around us or in our lives, then we get to be a seed that God plants and good things will still come, or at least something good in that circumstance.

Right.

I get it.

Really.

Bad things happen to us, hard things happen to us.

So no one's saying those things aren't going to happen.

Those things are going to happen.

But what it's saying is God's still using us if we let him, no matter the circumstance.

And in Philippians 4:11, basically, Paul, let me just see here.

Paul is writing it from jail.

He's in jail in Rome and he's writing to the church in Philippi.

And he basically is, he's like thanking them for their financial support.

And that's when he says, you know scripture that you've for sure heard, I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.

And here's the thing.

Contentment is a skill.

It's a practice.

And so it's much like gratitude.

The more you practice gratitude, the more you give thanks, the more that it shifts how your brain and your spirit work, right?

It moves you there.

Instead of staying in a place of, like, angst or anxiety, worry, negativity, it starts shifting.

It rewires you, if you will.

And the more you practice contentment, feeling content, trusting God for.

For what he says he'll do, the promises, the blessings, because you have seen him be faithful.

You've seen that you can have hope in him in the middle of trials.

And so I've seen it by a couple people, right, that the Greek word for contentment is actually, I'm going to say this wrong, so just bear with me here.

It's autarkies.

And basically what it means is it means like, independent of circumstances, content, or sufficiently satisfied.

In other words, it's the idea, like we said, that no matter what is going on, we can still be content, we can still be satisfied.

And it's much like when Paul was in jail.

He wasn't happy with his circumstances, surely, but even in the circumstance, God was using him to encourage the church, so he was still able to be a extension of God.

Do you see what I'm saying?

So in other words, in our circumstances, no matter what they are, if we can be content, if we can be present, we can be used.

So it's much like.

If you haven't listened yet to the podcast interview with Jason Laird, go listen to it.

But he talks, you know, about work is worship or right.

Or it can be depending on kind of how we understand it and how we see it.

And I just want to share what he.

One of the things he says about that.

He says the way you see your work will always influence how you do your work.

If you see your work as just labor and not worship, then it's going to be labor.

And then he said, when you see your work as worship onto the Lord, your desk becomes an altar.

And he says, even if you never lead one person to Christ, if you do your work unto the Lord, that is worship.

And then he just goes on to say that if you're.

If the Christian faith is not relevant in the workplace, it is not relevant at all.

But what he's saying is you're not stuck, you are stationed.

So whether you are finding yourself in a hospital room or jail or you're finding yourself at your church, you're Finding yourself in the classroom, teaching someone, you are finding yourself walking in your neighborhood, talking to a neighbor.

Wherever you find yourself, you can be content.

And if you're content, you can be present and you now can be an extension of Christ in the world.

You can be that example to that person of how a Christian lives, how they operate, how they show up to serve in love and kindness, how they don't focus on petty and complaining, but they rise above all those things to be someone that the person says.

How come in the midst of everything going on, you still have this presence about you where you show up and you're available and you're helpful and you provide to other people, Right?

You're loving regardless that someone, another neighbor, said something to you that wasn't kind.

This is what we're talking about.

When we have contentment, when we come from a place of gratitude, and then when we felt being present, God will use us, regardless of what we're walking through, regardless of how hard it is, regardless if we are feeling maybe worn down at where we're at.

Maybe we have a really hard job and we've kind of felt defeated lately.

Well, part of what we need to do is we need to reframe that feeling and start being grateful that we have this opportunity, whatever that opportunity is.

We need to start remembering, as Jason Laird said, our work becomes your witness.

And so how do we show up?

How do we be more content?

Well, part of the reason or part of the way we be more content is trusting God, seeing that he's working even when we don't see it, and then taking a posture of being grateful, being thankful every day throughout the day.

I've shared this before, but I love a practice I just call micro gratitude.

So beyond writing down, maybe you know what I'm grateful for.

Throughout the day, I will just have a little internal dialogue with God and I will just say, like, oh, Lord, how did you come up with this amazing taste of this particular herb?

Or lord, thank you just for my husband, you know, and all the things he does to provide to be supportive for me and his extended family and other people that ask him to help them with stuff like.

So I just continue to have this dialogue about everything and just, lord, this flower is so beautiful.

It's so creative.

And of course I'm grateful for bigger things.

And of course I. I write down and I note those things.

I'm grateful for answered prayers.

I'm grateful for having the intuition, right?

God prompting me when I needed to know something or say something that turns out it was probably super pivotable, pivotal in my.

Someone in my family's life, that it could have changed how things might have turned out differently and not in a good way.

Right?

Like, in other words, there's so many things I'm grateful for.

There's so many things that I know God had a hand.

He played a part, a big part in these things.

But I'm also grateful for every little thing, you know what I'm saying?

Like, I'm thankful for colors.

I'm thankful for sunsets every day.

So my point is, is the more we practice, the more we come from a place of this, the more that we see God is using us in the moments to change other people's lives, to be a blessing in other people's lives.

Whether it's just a kind gesture, a kind comment, or something much bigger, whether it's big for us or not, it might be big for someone else.

Speaking life and love into other people.

It matters.

And so I just wanted to share this with you today because once again, independent of our circumstances, we can be satisfied.

Not because we want the circumstance, but because in that circumstance, we can still be used.

We can still have purpose.

We still have a call on our lives.

We still are on assignment for God.

And when we start seeing our lives that way, some of the things that might have bothered us before that maybe some of us might call some of the things petty or small or even the hard things, we are somewhere that we don't think we deserve to be.

Look at Job and everything he walked through.

He did nothing to be in a situation where life sort of looked horrible, right?

It stunk.

But he kept trusting God.

Yes, he lamented, yes, he struggled and said, why, Lord?

But he kept being faithful and trusting God.

Okay, that's what we're talking about, is we have to have a different heart.

We have to have a different understanding of what this means to be a Christian, what this means to show up, you know, in hope and faith.

It means.

It means trusting him for what he's calling us to do, seeking God, putting our hope in, into God and what he's doing.

And then it's choosing and it's making a decision to decide to be content, to be joyful, to be grateful.

And it does.

It takes work, right?

I mean, no one said being Christian was easy, but it is worth, worth every bit of it.

Because the only thing that's going to fill us up is that relationship and the partnering with God, with letting him in and then letting him work through us and with us.

That is what fills us up no matter where we're at.

So friends today, I just want to share you share with you.

Share this with you.

I want to encourage you and just remind you, go grab the Joy Rising free download from my website.

Just go to kristenfitch.com and go to my Workbooks page and you'll also get my Faith Friday emails.

I send them most Fridays, not all Fridays.

It's just encourage you in your inbox.

Encourage you in your life.

Often I provide a couple questions or quotes that were really impactful to me this week or in scripture, but it's just another way to get rooted.

I'm sorry.

Allow your faith to be infused in all parts of your life.

So until next time, I hope you have a great if you enjoyed today's episode, if you could leave a rating review on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, it helps the show get discovered by more people so that we can continue to uplift and encourage people in their faith journey as well as all of the other parts of their lives.