Chapter 33—Sinfulness of Repining
Dear Friends,
I have been shown that as a family you experience much needless
unhappiness. God has not designed that you should be miserable; but
you have taken your minds from Jesus and centered them too much
upon yourselves. The great sin of your family is that of needless repin-
ing over God’s providences; your unsubmissiveness in this respect is
indeed alarming. You have magnified small difficulties and have talked
discouragements too much. You have a habit of draping everything
about you in mourning and have made yourselves unhappy without
cause. Your continued murmurings are separating you from God.
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You should keep off from Satan’s enchanted ground and not allow
your minds to be swayed from allegiance to God. Through Christ you
may and should be happy and should acquire habits of self-control.
Even your thoughts must be brought into subjection to the will of
God and your feelings under the control of reason and religion. Your
imagination was not given you to be allowed to run riot and have its
own way without any effort at restraint or discipline. If the thoughts
are wrong the feelings will be wrong, and the thoughts and feelings
combined make up the moral character. When you decide that as
Christians you are not required to restrain your thoughts and feelings
you are brought under the influence of evil angels and invite their
presence and their control. If you yield to your impressions and allow
your thoughts to run in a channel of suspicion, doubt, and repining
you will be among the most unhappy of mortals, and your lives will
prove a failure.
Dear Sister F, you have a diseased imagination; and you dishonor
God by allowing your feelings to have complete control of your reason
and judgment. You have a determined will, which causes the mind
to react upon the body, unbalancing the circulation and producing
congestion in certain organs; and you are sacrificing health to your
feelings.
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