p. 183 | Waste of Life

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jun 7, 1877

Waste of Life

It is plain that God designed to sustain man by food, air, water, light, heat, exercise, the protection of clothes and of houses, and by refreshing sleep. Now, as these are all necessities of his nature, he should so use them as to secure the end designed by the Creator in their use. It is the strange perversity of man's evil nature that enables him to turn all God's blessings into curses, or to use the good things which God has given him in such a manner as to make them productive of serious evil. Men should govern their appetites as to the kinds of food, the quantity eaten, the times of eating, etc. If these things alone were regarded, there would be no dyspepsia and very little headache in the world. From the first sin in Eden till the present time, men have been constantly engaged in destroying themselves by what they put into their mouths. They cannot, or rather they will not, be persuaded that there is any importance attached to the government of their appetites. And so they act with reference to all the things which God has made necessary to human life.

If people could realize the value of pure air, and of plentiful sunlight, and of sufficient and suitable exercise, or of keeping within the bounds of moderation where one's employment is severe manual labor, and of wearing such clothing as shall furnish necessary protection to the person, especially to the feet and limbs, and that shall not hinder the free circulation of the blood, and of securing sufficient and refreshing sleep, and would be careful in all these things, they might avoid a very large part of the physical troubles they now suffer, and might save a large measure of vital force which they now prodigally waste.

Perhaps no one item is worthier of attention than that concerning the value of good sleep. We should never lie down to sleep in an irritated, fretful, peevish, or impatient state of mind. Sleep, under such conditions, is not worth half what it was designed of God to be worth to us. It is our duty when we give ourselves up to sleep to do it with serenity, and peacefulness, and trust. This is the way to have sleep that will renew our strength, as God designed that it should be renewed each night for the labor and toil of the day to come.

But how shall we secure this condition for our sleep? Evidently there is but one way for this. We must live each day in this frame of mind from morning till night. This is what Paul means by having the peace of God rule in our hearts. In truth, it is worth as much to our health through the day as it is during the night. It does not follow that we are never to feel pain because of things that go wrong, nor never to take burdens caused by the wrong courses of others, which it may be our work to correct and put away; but all this may be done without fretfulness and peevishness on our part. If we fall into this, we wound our own souls, and we do not thereby benefit others, or in any way contribute toward the removal of the evil.

It is folly to fret over things that we cannot help. No one will deny this. It is also folly to fret over things we can help; for a wiser course would be to attend to the correction of them. And these two classes of things are all that there is for us to fret over. The burdens of life are heavy enough without our adding to them by fretting. No small share of the friction which deranges the vital machine comes directly from fretfulness.

It is our duty, as it is our privilege, to preserve our vital forces. We can do this by regarding the laws of our being. We need not waste our life forces. If we will carefully preserve what we now possess, there are few of us who may not even now secure to ourselves a good measure of health. Let us be true to ourselves, and we shall find that God will co-operate with us by the restorative power he has put within us.—Health Reformer.