In my article last Sunday on DrydenWire, there were a couple individuals who complained that is was a “religious” post. As a matter of fact, I don’t think there’s a post that goes up anywhere, whether good or bad, positive or negative, that someone won’t find a reason to complain about. It's a given on Facebook or any social media and getting worse in our society as a whole.

Arguing and complaining is a characteristic of the world. We live in a world that has rejected God and therefore abides in a state of unthankfulness. Many homes and work environments have a culture of grumbling and complaining. However, for Christians, this should not be true. God has called us not only to not complain and argue but to be thankful. First Thessalonians 5:18 says, “give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.” God’s will is for us to be thankful in every situation.

We live in a society that is prone to complaining. In companies, the employees complain about their bosses and one another. In homes, husbands complain about their wives. Wives complain about their husbands. Children complain about their siblings and their parents. In churches, the members of the congregation complain about one another and the pastor. The pastor complains about the congregants. We live in a world full of complaining and arguing.

Isn’t that the state of the world today? We are discontent about everything. We are discontent about our job, our home, our TV, our phone, our family, our church, etc. We complain about anything and everything that WE don’t agree with. For some people, it is hard to find anything that they are content with. In fact, right when Adam sinned we see the tendency of man’s new sin nature to complain. He says to God, “The woman you gave me, gave me the food and I did eat.” When God asked him if he had eaten from the Tree of the Knowledge, he didn’t respond with, “Yes.” He responded by blaming God and the woman for his failure. The woman then blamed the serpent.

As an ex-convict, I can say the prison system is probably the place where I have experienced the most complaining. It seemed to be part of the culture. We all complained about the prisons, and even the guards seemed to complain about things as much or more than the inmates. This complaining seemed to bond us together, a common animosity. We complained about the food, the way we were treated by the staff, about the state of our living quarters, the noise, the unfairness, the lack of education and skills, the smell, our roommates, and the list goes on and on.

I would say the church is at times not too far behind the prisons. We complain about the worship, the sermon, the seating, the lighting, the offering, the leadership, the members, and anything else we can complain about. Paul realized this tendency was in the Philippians, and Christians overall, and therefore, he challenged them to “do everything without complaining and arguing.” He didn’t say “some things” but “everything.”

Many people in the church are in a wandering experience in their spiritual life. They are not progressing; they are not going anywhere. And the reason is that there is a bitter root destroying their harvest and inviting the chastisement of God on their lives. It also might be bringing God’s chastisement on others’ lives as well. Maybe this bitterness is an anger against somebody that harmed them. Maybe it’s simply discontentment with their circumstances or lack of trust in God’s goodness. Whatever it may be, it must be known that this complaining spirit is a very dangerous sin that brings God’s discipline.

As Christians live a lifestyle of light, they draw people to Christ. People should look at believers and see a stark difference. This light will either push them away or draw them closer so they can learn about Christ—the reason for this light (cf. John 3:19-21). Again, the primary way we live as lights is by not complaining. When we practice complaining and arguing, we look more like a child of this world.

When Christians are in a work place, a family, or a ministry and they choose to be thankful instead of complainers, they demonstrate that they are children of God and lights in the world. They stand out. Their lifestyle becomes a witness to the world and therefore draws others to Christ.

However, it should be heard that when Christians choose to complain and be thankless like the world, they dim the light of the gospel. They instead look just like the world which is characterized by not glorifying and giving thanks to God.

BOTTOM LINE IS COMPLAINING IS A RESULT OF SELFISHNESS AND DISCONTENTMENT.

***Below is Diane Dryden's article on Brian Cole originally posted on February 24, 2017***

The Cost of Being Cool

Friday, February 24, 2017 | by Diane Dryden

When Brian Cole lived in Chippewa Falls he was one of those young boys who was bullied mercilessly because he was pudgy and had buck teeth. He also went home each night to a domineering father that lectured him at length every time he got into trouble. His younger brother’s behavior went unnoticed, but Brian always got both barrels.

When he was around 10 years old, he started to look at the cool kids to one side of the playground with interest. These were the older kids who smoked and didn’t care who knew it; they were fearless and way cool and this attracted him. If he could be like they were no one would be able to trouble him ever again. Not the other students, not his dad. He desperately wanted the power of fear these guys had.

For some reason the guys accepted him, and he became one of the cool guys and by age 12 he was turned on to pornography, sex, smoking, and drugs and by the seventh grade, at age 14, the lockups started for petty thefts including stealing money.

His father started to keep journals of his wrongs and at 14 he had enough and ran away from home. He’d run away before, but he was always found and returned. This time it led to a series of foster homes for him. Foster homes, group homes, shelter homes, boy’s homes, treatment centers, often fending off sexual advances from older men in charge of the facilities. He spent time in several hospital psyche wards and all it did was make him harder. As he went deeper and deeper into the lifestyle, he even took on a street name. No longer was he Brian, a name he hated, he was Ozzy. 

His drugs of choice included marijuana, mushrooms, speed and acid. His life became a game, a joke, and he became a master manipulator. At age 17 he joined the military to become a combat engineer. He excelled in the training and was top in his class and just about the time he was to graduate, someone looked into his past and found the felony charges he’d racked up and that was the end of his military career.

His drug habit and life was out of control and he started growing drugs and even sold his classic 1969 Dodge for $50 just so he could buy the drugs he craved.

Petty theft was one thing, but as his habit grew he started stealing guns. He’d get caught and spend 10 days in jail and then a short time on probation. His drug habit was now out of control and when he found a fence that bought whatever he brought in, the stealing escalated. 

He was living in Eau Claire in 1984 and burgled 250 homes in six months stealing everything he could find. He stole from churches and desecrated tombstones just because he could. He made $40,000 fencing items and then he found out that his fence was the FBI who had set a sting and he fell into the trap.

He’d already done 4 years in jail as a juvenile, and now he was going to do time as an adult. He’d worn the ‘bracelet’ several times, but it never stopped him from running away, once all the way to California.

The final act he was involved in that sentenced him to 18 years in prison (he did 10 years) was when he was high on crack cocaine; he shot a man with a .357. He aimed dead center, but between the drugs and the kick of the weapon, he hit the guy in the arm and didn’t kill him.

He hated prison and he hated the Bible thumpers most of all. Being a master manipulator, he got everything inside that he had gotten on the outside, drugs, sex, you name it. He was a bad angry man, full of tattoos and piercings and no one got in his way, no one. In 1984 he had added another tattoo, that of a cross. He had it put on the bottom of his left foot so each time he took a step, he stepped on God.

But these Bible thumpers gave him an idea. He needed a god to worship and he picked Satan. He was so dedicated to Satanism that he lobbied tirelessly for six years to get Wiccan time in the prison chapel. 

When he got out of prison he moved back to the Eau Claire area and in 2006, he started a Wiccan temple so he could spread his anger and hatred of God. To have more money for drugs, he lived out of a van, having lost his home and his car. His then girlfriend in 2008 was a recovering cancer survivor with a supply of oxycodone. By now Ozzy was a full-blown pot head and he cut her oxys with meth and they both became addicted and he almost died 3 times from overdoses.

Winter had come and Ozzy was out selling drugs. He was high and it was an icy night and he fell asleep and his car ended up in a snow bank. When he heard the sirens he dove behind a telephone pole and covered himself with snow so the cops wouldn’t find him. It was almost midnight and he fell asleep. It was his brother that came to his rescue, but the cops surrounded the house later and it ended in a trip to the county jail with lots of new charges. 

He was 44 years old and no wiser. After he was incarcerated in jail he discovered he had gotten married to the women whose oxycodone he ‘shared’. He also found out that she already had a son who had autism. 

It was 2009 and he had spent almost his entire life wanting to be cool, to be feared, and to build a massive wall between himself and anyone who had ever hurt him.

There was a drug and alcohol program in the county jail with a 72-year-old guy in charge who challenged him to just listen to what Jesus said. He gave him some written questions whose answers needed to be written down using information that could only be gotten from the Bible. Ozzy didn’t have a Bible so he stole one from the chapel area.

Ozzy’s mom was a Christian, so this information the chaplain gave him wasn’t entirely new to him. She was also one of those tireless saints that had prayed for him for 33 years.

Out of curiosity, he started reading passages here and there from the Bible and what surprised him was much of what he read was also in the satanic rituals. He had memorized the mantra that included the word hyssop, but the Bible finished its information about hyssop with, “Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean, wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Cleanse me from my sin and wash me thoroughly from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions; and my sin is ever before me.”

Impossible. He was a bad dude. He was a very bad dude with a life of failure behind him. How could a loving God forgive him?

He continued to read on in Psalms 51. “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of they tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.”

For the first time in his life Brian made an important decision; one that would change his life for the good. He came to Christ and asked Him to be his savior. 

The rest of the story is almost unbelievable unless you listen to it from his very lips, unless you sit with him and see him smile from a gentle place within.

His You Tube performances are off the charts popular and his school visits are increasing every month. He’s got a huge following on Face Book at simply Brian Cole.

He’s taken out his piercings, but he’s still covered with tattoos. He’s an avid biker, but now his leather jacket sports completely different patches. The cross tattoo on the bottom of his foot now represents his dependence on Christ and his opportunity to follow Him wherever He leads.

Brian sometimes works through the Burnett County Restorative Justice program and will be speaking at the Northwood School in Minong on March 1 and then at both Spooner and Shell Lake March 29. He has plenty of sites where anyone interested in learning the complete story can find it, starting at setusfree.org.

The overwhelming focus of the rest of his life is to work within drug and alcohol programs catching people who are falling through the cracks. 

His father died, but not before Brian could ask forgiveness from him.

His mother remarried and never stopped praying for him. Because he was such a master-manipulator, she wasn’t sure his new life was for real or not, but now she’s convinced it’s true.

He’s miraculously still married to Marsha, even though they’ve had a rough ride and were only weeks from a divorce.

He’s become a pastor in Drummond and rides a Harley and has a biker ministry and works with youth. His congregation is growing by leaps and bounds.

One of his license plates says God Rocks; the other one, Hate Sin.

He’s available to speak at your school, or church, or group. 715-491-7461 or setusfree.org.