HOW TO CULTIVATE PATIENCE.
By John Harvey Kellogg
The food we eat, which we take into our stomach, colors, so to speak, our brains and our thoughts. I examined a patient one time. I talked with her about her tastes, examined her stomach, etc. Finally she burst into tears, and began to sob, “Doctor, do tell me what is the matter with me; am I sick or am I wicked?” She said: “I am cross. I scold my husband, I scold my children, I scold my neighbors, all the day long, and I have no occasion for it. Now, am I sick, or am I wicked?” I looked at her tongue, examined her stomach, and found a lot of decayed food there, and her breath smelled of decay, and her stomach was the hold of every unclean and hateful germ. There was abundant reason why the woman should be cross and irritable, for every nerve was just strained to the utmost tension. When anything was going to happen, there was such a tension on her nerves that she would scream out. But this poor woman I made perfectly happy by simply telling her that her case was not a case of total depravity, but a case of total indigestion; and we cured her in a week’s time by washing out her stomach, and thus she had a clean conscience. It was all done by simply getting her stomach clean. And so we ought to be able to control ourselves with God’s help. She was able to control herself. When she was violating the laws of nature, and eating unwholesome things, she might pray as much as she liked, and the Lord could not give her patience and a clean conscience, because that was not in his order. The Lord could not make her a patient woman while she was taking a sure course to make herself impatient; but by eating proper food, that would give her proper nourishment, she could have a clean brain. That is the reason why God has given us so much instruction about diet,—so that he might by and by say to us, “Here is the patience of the saints.” Now, my friends, if ever we want to get where the Lord can call attention to our patience, where he can say, These people are saints, look at their patience,—there are trials and tribulations coming,—if we ever get the patience that is necessary for that time, we will have to get it in the Lord’s way. There is no other way we can get it. That poor woman could not be patient to save her life, or to save her soul. She was troubled about it; and there are some of you troubled in that way—because you can not be patient. That is one of my troubles, too. It is hard to be patient. I am naturally a very impatient person, and it is exceedingly hard to be patient. I have to pray for that more than for anything else. Now I know that I have to live on a plain, simple diet, in order to be the least bit patient, so that any person could live with me. If I lived on the diet that some people live on, I do not believe that I would be patient at all. The Lord will always supplement what we do, but we have to do our duty. Before we can ask God to do something for us that we have not done, we have to do all we can do. If we try to put it off, try to get rid of it, this way, that way, and the other way, we find that we are losing time. We can not get goodness by simply praying for it; we have to work, as well as pray. We have to exercise faith, and we have to obey; and it is not only faith, it is obedience as well, that God exacts of us. He exacts of us willing obedience; not simply obedience, but willing obedience. So long as we do a good thing merely from a sense of duty, it will not do us any good. I believe that a man who undertakes to live out health reform from a sense of duty, will make a total failure of it. He will make a failure of it every time. He will do very much as a man in England did some years ago. Elder Loughborough met a brother, and recommended him to eat oatmeal. A year after that he met him again, and asked him how he liked oatmeal, and he said: “My wife does not seem to like it very well. I like it pretty well myself, but my wife wants to know if it would do to cook it. Do you think it would be proper to cook the oatmeal before we eat it?” The poor man had been eating raw oatmeal all the time, because he thought that was health reform, and he liked it pretty well—from a sense of duty, I suppose. So, as long as we undertake to do things from a sense of duty, we will do just some stupid thing like that, that will upset everything, and entirely negative and destroy all the good our obedience might do us. Now, if we undertake to go about this thing in a willing way, God will enlighten our minds, and he will lead us into right ways; he will help us, and direct us, bringing the right sort of knowledge to our minds, and will bring us in contact with the people who will aid us in a variety of ways to get light and truth that will help us out of our difficulties, so that we shall know just what to do, and how to do it. I think that people years ago tried to live out health reform from a sense of duty, and just as soon as they would begin to backslide a little, they would abandon it altogether. We want to be health reformers because it is a privilege, and because God has implanted this in our bodies; and he is trying to work to the best ends for us. What a privilege it is to think straight in that way; and if we do it in that way, we will get a blessing in doing it.