Selection from A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, by William Law, written about 1728.
A dull, uneasy, and complaining spirit, which is sometimes the spirit of those who seem mindful of religion, is, of all temperaments, the most contrary to religion, for it disowns that God whom it pretends to adore.
A person disowns God when he does adore Him as a Being of infinite goodness. If a man does not believe from his heart that all who believe that Jesus is the Christ are born of God and in His Kingdom, where nothing happens by chance, but everything is guided and directed by the care and providence of a Being that is all love and goodness to all His children, then he cannot be said truly to believe in God.
...he that believes that everything happens to him for the best, cannot possibly complain for the lack of something that is better.
If, therefore, you live in murmurings and complaints, accusing all the accidents of life, it is not because you are a weak, infirm creature, but it is because you lack the first principle of Christianity -- a true belief in God.
For as thankfulness is an express acknowledgment of the goodness of God towards you, so discontentment and complaints are as plain accusations of God's lack of goodness toward you.
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