This Day With God

Look to the Light, August 12

Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer. Romans 12:12. TDG 233.1

God demands of us to exercise fervent piety under all and every circumstance in harmony with Jesus Christ. Seek for work in His lines because this is the fruit of true godliness. Win souls to Jesus. TDG 233.2

If you feel at liberty to moan and groan over bereavements, things that are past, out of your keeping, things you cannot change or alter, you will neglect the present duties lying directly in your pathway. Look unto Jesus, who is the Author and Finisher of your faith. Turn your attention from subjects which make you gloomy and sad, for you become an agent in the hands of the enemy to multiply gloom and darkness and you will make the atmosphere surrounding your soul dark and forbidding. Although severe afflictions may come upon you, it is your business to look up, and to see light in Jesus.... TDG 233.3

If you are exclusively engaged in dwelling upon your own sorrows and darkness, thinking God has dealt hard with you, your religion is not uplifting but is depressing. You become a shadow of darkness, hard and complaining, when exclusively shut up to your own sorrows. TDG 233.4

Sister McAlpine was present and she was doing this. TDG 233.5

She had lost her son, who was not prepared to die. She spoke, with others, in the social meeting. Oh, her heart was so heavy and sad, but she said she was comforted with the words spoken by Sister White. We had a good, profitable social meeting, then this afflicted sister spoke to me about her son they had buried a few weeks before, dying without hope, and the sorrow and grief she had felt. I entreated her to leave the mourning for the dead, which would do no good to worry over; that she as a mother should wisely and mercifully care for the living children, and that she had not a moment to devote to vain regrets, but to gird up the loins of her mind and go to work and try to bring her children to Jesus and herself surrender to Christ that she might grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ. Working in Christ's lines, she would never grow cold but become identified with the Saviour in all His plans.—Manuscript 83, August 12, 1893, diary. TDG 233.6