Sometimes you can get around a person that does nothing but whine and cry about everything like a little mealy-mouth.  They can look at a sunny day at a park, while beholding a beautiful flower garden about to enjoy a wonderful picnic lunch with all the fixings and find a reason not to be filled with gratitude.  It's called a critical heart.

Now I praise the LORD for the changes he has made in my heart in this area over the years,  I'm not where I use to, but I'm still not where I want to be.  I use to be a hawk looking down my nose at people from above, when I would hone in on my prey, I would let loose a barrage of jokes and critical one-liners to take them out at once with one swoop of the tongue.

Now I know better than to talk about and gossip about others–it's ugly and God is never pleased with it. I realize the bible says in Proverbs 10:19 When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.  Although this is true, the bible also says in Proverbs 26:12 Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.  Although I ask for wisdom for God daily, sometimes in my heart I get puffed up and the root is always sin, whether I speak out of my critical heart or not.  God sees the heart; man looks at the outward appearance.

I must watch out for being ugly and critical in my heart without saying a word, it's what causes self-righteousness and pride.  I pray that I will be a man of God before my friends and family and especially before my enemies, with a pure heart and not crusted over with sin.  This can easily happen if I take my focus off Christ and put it on to myself.  I hate sin, that’s why I must point it out to my readers when ever I catch a tad of it in my life, so that I don't think to highly of myself.  My life must be about Christ and my family, not about me, anything else and I am failing to become the over-comer and ruler in the Kingdom God has called me to be.  The bible also says "the wise judge themselves so they don't have to be judged."