Praise Promotes Health of Body and Soul, September 6

Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of Thy countenance. Psalm 89:15. Nothing tends more to promote health of body and of soul than does a spirit of gratitude and praise. It is a positive duty to resist melancholy, discontented thoughts and feelings,—as much a duty as it is to pray. If we are heaven-bound, how can we go as a band of mourners, groaning and complaining all along the way to our Father’s house? Those professed Christians who are constantly complaining, and who seem to think cheerfulness and happiness a sin, have not genuine religion. Those who take a mournful pleasure in all that is melancholy in the natural world, who choose to look upon dead leaves rather than to gather the beautiful living flowers; who see no beauty in grand mountain heights and in valleys clothed with living green; who close their senses to the joyful voice which speaks to them in nature, and which is sweet and musical to the listening ear,—these are not in Christ. They are gathering to themselves gloom and darkness, when they might have brightness, even the Sun of Righteousness arising in their hearts with healing in His beams.—The Ministry of Healing, 251.