Transient Troubles by Selected

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park, Washington, D. C. · May 9, 1912

Transient Troubles

By Selected

Most of us have had troubles all our lives, and each day has brought all the evil that we wished to endure. But if we were asked to recount the sorrows of our lives, how many could we remember? How many that are six months old should we think worthy to be remembered or mentioned? To-day's troubles look large, but a week hence they will be forgotten and buried out of sight.

If you would keep a book, and every day put down the things that worry you, and see what becomes of them, it would be a benefit to you. You allow a thing to annoy you, just as you allow a fly to settle on you and plague you; and you get angry,—or in other words, lose your temper; for when men are surcharged with temper, they are said to have lost it,—and you justify yourselves for being thrown off your balance by causes which you do not trace out. But if you would see what it was that threw you off your balance before breakfast, and put it down in a little book, and ascertain what becomes of it, you would see what a fool you were in the matter.

The art of forgetting is a blessed art, but the art of overlooking is quite as important. And if we should take time to write down the origin, the progress, and the outcome of a few of our troubles, it would make us so ashamed of the fuss we make over them that we should be glad to drop such things and bury them at once in eternal forgetfulness. Life is too short to be worn out in petty worries, frettings, hatreds, and vexations.

Let us think only on whatsoever things are pure, and lovely, and gentle, and of good report.—Selected.