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Fretting

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 28, 1863

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 21, No. 22.

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Fretting.

I propose twenty-one reasons why you should never fret, the first of which shall be as good as the one which a certain lawyer announced before the court as the first of forty good and sufficient reasons why the man represented by his client did not sign the deed, which was, the man had long been dead when the deed was written. "Prove that," responded the judge, "and save us the trouble of the other thirty-nine." But men, to learn righteousness, must have "line upon line and precept upon precept."
1. If we fret at the wrong-doing of others we sin against God.
2. Fretting can do no good. It will not restore loss, repair injury, or reform the guilty.
3. If we abstain from fretting at an offense against the truth, we shall promote the good and offset the offense.
4. God has suffered the offense to transpire; he could have prevented it had it been best. We do not mean that it was best that the offense should occur, but it was not best for God to interpose to prevent it. Preventing would be worse than permitting.
5. It is a great gratification to the devil to see men fret; he tries to make them.
6. Fretting destroys our own peace.
7. Out of the present evil God can accomplish a future good. There can no possible evil befall us here, but that in it God designs our highest benefit, according to the ever-blessed assurance that "all things shall work together for good to them that love God."
8. Resisting the temptation to fret glorifies God.
9. Fretting evinces unbelief. It is an expression of dissatisfaction before God with what he suffers; it amounts to saying that we know better than he.
10. It is a manifestation of self-will, it is insubordination, it is rebellion.
11. It is not Godlike, hence it is an expressed disapproval of his likeness; it is casting contempt on his image, hence it is profanity.
12. Fretting fixes and confirms a sinful habit, which grows and strengthens with every indulgence, so that we become slaves to a fretful disposition.
13. It grieves the Holy Spirit.
14. It destroys one's influence. Few people have confidence in a habitual fretter; he is regarded as having sold himself to the bidding of a capricious tyrant, and as having thrown into the bargain his manly dignity and moral integrity.
15. It will make you hated, dreaded, and avoided.16. God will avenge you and take care of the wrong-doer.
17. Really the causes of fretfulness are seldom worth fretting about.
18. The fretful man is as a foot-ball with which Satan makes sport.
19. Fretting is contagious. Let there be one fretter in a family, and the probability is that all will become fretters.
20. Abstaining from fretting under temptation strengthens every virtue and weakens the power of every sin, according to the law that every moral act strengthens the whole moral man.
21. The redemptive power of Christlike forbearance is seen in strong contrast with its opposite, in the currency which fretting gives to evil surmisings, and the facility with which the maligned character is redeemed by patience and forbearance. Fret, and men will believe the evil spoken; bear it, and they will say it is untrue.
Finally, beloved, let me propose ten specifics for this terrible disease, either of which will be found a curative:
1. Hide in the "Cleft Rock" when adversity comes. Lie low when the wind blows. The truly humble soul whose all is God, and whose self is nothing, has no self-interest over the abuse of which, to fret.
2. Overlook the immediate instrument of evil or injury and see God in it trying you, as God suffered Job to go to trial under the Devil.
3. Cultivate a tender sensibility, be pitiful, commiserate the misfortunes of the guilty. A certain fretful man was advised to repeat the Lord's Prayer when he became angry, before he vented his anger, and he never after could get over the petition, "Forgive us . . . as we forgive" . . . without losing his angry feelings.
4. Think of your own faults—the wrong you have done to others.
5. Think what the Saviour suffered, and how he bore it.
6. Don't complain of the wrong, or talk about it; your words will add fire to your spirit.
7. Don't think about it, for thought is fuel to the fire that burns the soul.
8. Don't pray about the offense; pray for the offender, and think only of his guilt before God and not against yourself.
9. Do a kindness to the offender.
10. Look forward to the judgment.—Christian Advocate and Journal.