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Selfishness and World Loving
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You may turn to the right, and there will be no light, and to the left,
and you cannot discover a ray.
You make trouble for yourself where there is no trouble, because
you are not right. You are unconsecrated. Your complaining, penuri-
ous spirit makes you unhappy and displeases God. During your life
you have been looking out for yourself, seeking to make yourself
happy. It is poor work, unprofitable business. The more you invest
here the heavier will be the loss. The less stock you take in this
business of serving yourself the greater will be the saving on your
part. You are a stranger to disinterested, unselfish love, and while
you see no special sin in the absence of this precious trait you will
not be diligent to cultivate it.
You loved your husband and married him. You knew that when
you married him you covenanted to become a mother to his children.
But I saw a lack in you in this matter. You are sadly deficient. You
do not love the children of your husband, and unless there is an
entire change, a thorough reformation in you, and in your manner of
government, these precious jewels are ruined. Love, manifestation
of affection, is not a part of your discipline. Shall I tell you the truth
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and become your enemy by so doing? You are too thoroughly selfish
to love the children of another. I was shown that the fruit of your
union would not be prospered and blessed with strength, life, and
health, and God’s spirit would leave you to yourself, unless you are
thoroughly proved and tested, and right up those things in which you
are so deficient. As your selfishness withers and blights the young
hearts around you, so will the curse of God wither and blight the
pledges of your selfish love and union. And if you continue your
selfish course, God will come still closer to you and remove your
idols one after another from before your face until you shall humble
your proud, selfish, unsubdued heart before Him.
I saw that you would have a fearful account to render in the day
of God because of your unfulfilled trust. You are making the lives of
those dear children very bitter, especially the daughter’s. Where is
the affection, the loving caress, the patient forbearance? Hatred lives
in your unsanctified heart more than love. Censure leaps from your
lips more than praise and encouragement. Your manners, your harsh
ways, your unsympathizing nature, are to that sensitive daughter like