QUESTION

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 28, 1900

The King's Messenger.

How can you enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit and be so immersed in business? is the question propounded by many of my friends. The idea seems to be that to be indwelt by the Comforter we must be idly supine and lazily happy. The thought has in some way obtained that his abiding is only for those who live pietistic lives, and shut themselves out from the world, and give themselves up to dreamy ecstasies, or engage in entrancing deliriums of delight. Hence the monkish cell was the plan in other ages; the separation was the way later; and now it is the profession and the practice. Business is regarded “worldly;” and to be engaged in business is to be “worldly minded” and to be “serving mammon;” and how dwells the Holy Spirit in such?

Paul worked with his own hands, and was dwelling in his own hired house, that he might not be chargeable to any. To be “diligent in business” preceded the “fervent in spirit,” and in both “serving the Lord.”

To my mind the Holy Ghost does not, can not, abide in a lazy person; for an idle mind is the devil’s workshop, and this surely is no place for Him. Do business unto the Lord. Whatever you do, do it as unto him.

So many of our young people desire to shirk work—to go to school, to attend conventions, to continually go to meetings, thinking these will tend to their spiritual development, and anything of manual labors will lessen their growth in grace. To attain this they are willing to pauperize themselves, and to be beggars on the Christian community. This seems to be a mistake. The Holy Spirit does not design that we should lose our manhood or womanhood, or degrade ourselves by living on or off of others. He desires us to be dependent on him, and independent of others; to be in subjection to no one; to love, and live, and labor for his glory and the good of men.

There is more enjoyment in business than out. There is more communion in service than in idleness. The way to serve God is to use the talents he has given—to meet with the trials and tribulations incident to a business life is the best way to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth