complaining

• man should not bemoan his lowly origin when Creator Sons pass through same experience

21:4.6Cre­ator Sons, sub­se­quent to the com­ple­tion of their be­stowal ca­reers, are reck­oned as a sep­a­rate or­der, sev­en­fold Mas­ter Sons. In per­son the Mas­ter Sons are iden­ti­cal with the Cre­ator Sons, but they have un­der­gone such a unique be­stowal ex­pe­ri­ence that they are com­monly re­garded as a dif­fer­ent or­der. When a Cre­ator deigns to ef­fect a be­stowal, a real and per­ma­nent change is des­tined to take place. True, the be­stowal Son is still and none the less a Cre­ator, but he has added to his na­ture the ex­pe­ri­ence of a crea­ture, which for­ever re­moves him from the di­vine level of a Cre­ator Son and el­e­vates him to the ex­pe­ri­en­tial plane of a Mas­ter Son, one who has fully earned the right to rule a uni­verse and ad­min­is­ter its worlds. Such be­ings em­body all that can be se­cured from di­vine parent­age and em­brace ev­ery­thing to be de­rived from per­fected-crea­ture ex­pe­ri­ence. Why should man be­moan his lowly ori­gin and en­forced evo­lu­tion­ary ca­reer when the very Gods must pass through an equiv­a­lent ex­pe­ri­ence be­fore they are ac­counted ex­pe­ri­en­tially wor­thy and com­pe­tent fi­nally and fully to rule over their uni­verse do­mains!

• accept challenges without

48:6.35From them you will learn to let pres­sure de­velop sta­bil­ity and cer­tainty; to be faith­ful and earnest and, withal, cheer­ful; to ac­cept chal­lenges with­out com­plaint and to face dif­fi­cul­ties and un­cer­tain­ties with­out fear. They will ask: If you fail, will you rise in­domitably to try anew? If you suc­ceed, will you main­tain a well-bal­anced poise—a sta­bi­lized and spir­i­tu­al­ized at­ti­tude—through­out ev­ery ef­fort in the long strug­gle to break the fet­ters of ma­te­rial in­er­tia, to at­tain the free­dom of spirit ex­is­tence?

• prayer turns c. into patience

91:6.2Prayer is not a tech­nique for cur­ing real and or­ganic dis­eases, but it has con­tributed enor­mously to the en­joy­ment of abun­dant health and to the cure of nu­mer­ous men­tal, emo­tional, and ner­vous ail­ments. And even in ac­tual bac­te­rial dis­ease, prayer has many times added to the ef­fi­cacy of other re­me­dial pro­ce­dures. Prayer has turned many an ir­ri­ta­ble and com­plain­ing in­valid into a paragon of pa­tience and made him an in­spi­ra­tion to all other hu­man suf­fer­ers.

• after Michael’s incarnation, no c. by Material Sons

119:4.4Never, through­out the seven years of this as­sign­ment, was this Trin­ity Teacher Son wholly per­suaded as to the iden­tity of his se­raphic as­so­ciate. True, all ser­a­phim dur­ing that age were re­garded with pe­cu­liar in­ter­est and scrutiny. Full well we all knew that our beloved Sov­er­eign was abroad in the uni­verse, dis­guised as a ser­a­phim, but never could we be cer­tain of his iden­tity. Never was he pos­i­tively iden­ti­fied un­til the time of his at­tach­ment to the be­stowal mis­sion of this Trin­ity Teacher Son. But al­ways through­out this era were the su­preme ser­a­phim re­garded with spe­cial so­lic­i­tude, lest any of us should find that we had un­awares been host to the Sov­er­eign of the uni­verse on a mis­sion of crea­ture be­stowal. And so it has be­come for­ever true, con­cern­ing an­gels, that their Cre­ator and Ruler has been “in all points tried and tested in the like­ness of se­raphic per­son­al­ity.”

• elders complained about Jesus to Joseph and Mary

124:1.4But trou­ble was again stirred up at school when one of the more back­ward pupils dis­cov­ered Je­sus draw­ing a char­coal pic­ture of the teacher on the floor of the school­room. There it was, plain as day, and many of the el­ders had viewed it be­fore the com­mit­tee went to call on Joseph to de­mand that some­thing be done to sup­press the law­less­ness of his el­dest son. And though this was not the first time com­plaints had come to Joseph and Mary about the do­ings of their ver­sa­tile and ag­gres­sive child, this was the most se­ri­ous of all the ac­cu­sa­tions which had thus far been lodged against him. Je­sus lis­tened to the in­dict­ment of his artis­tic ef­forts for some time, be­ing seated on a large stone just out­side the back door. He re­sented their blam­ing his fa­ther for his al­leged mis­deeds; so in he marched, fear­lessly con­fronting his ac­cusers. The el­ders were thrown into con­fu­sion. Some were in­clined to view the episode hu­mor­ously, while one or two seemed to think the boy was sac­ri­le­gious if not blas­phe­mous. Joseph was non­plused, Mary in­dig­nant, but Je­sus in­sisted on be­ing heard. He had his say, coura­geously de­fended his view­point, and with con­sum­mate self-con­trol an­nounced that he would abide by the de­ci­sion of his fa­ther in this as in all other mat­ters con­tro­ver­sial. And the com­mit­tee of el­ders de­parted in si­lence.

• Judas complained about Nathaniel

139:6.5The apos­tles all loved and re­spected Na­than­iel, and he got along with them splen­didly, ex­cept­ing Ju­das Is­car­iot. Ju­das did not think Na­than­iel took his apos­tle­ship suf­fi­ciently se­ri­ously and once had the temer­ity to go se­cretly to Je­sus and lodge com­plaint against him. Said Je­sus: “Ju­das, watch care­fully your steps; do not over­mag­nify your of­fice. Who of us is com­pe­tent to judge his brother? It is not the Fa­ther’s will that his chil­dren should par­take only of the se­ri­ous things of life. Let me re­peat: I have come that my breth­ren in the flesh may have joy, glad­ness, and life more abun­dantly. Go then, Ju­das, and do well that which has been in­trusted to you but leave Na­than­iel, your brother, to give ac­count of him­self to God.” And the mem­ory of this, with that of many sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ences, long lived in the self-de­ceiv­ing heart of Ju­das Is­car­iot.

• man should not complain of experiences part of life

148:5.3“But, my son, you should know that the Fa­ther does not pur­posely af­flict his chil­dren. Man brings down upon him­self un­nec­es­sary af­flic­tion as a re­sult of his per­sis­tent re­fusal to walk in the bet­ter ways of the di­vine will. Af­flic­tion is po­ten­tial in evil, but much of it has been pro­duced by sin and in­iq­uity. Many un­usual events have tran­spired on this world, and it is not strange that all think­ing men should be per­plexed by the scenes of suf­fer­ing and af­flic­tion which they wit­ness. But of one thing you may be sure: The Fa­ther does not send af­flic­tion as an ar­bi­trary pun­ish­ment for wrong­do­ing. The im­per­fec­tions and hand­i­caps of evil are in­her­ent; the penal­ties of sin are in­ev­i­ta­ble; the de­stroy­ing con­se­quences of in­iq­uity are in­ex­orable. Man should not blame God for those af­flic­tions which are the nat­u­ral re­sult of the life which he chooses to live; nei­ther should man com­plain of those ex­pe­ri­ences which are a part of life as it is lived on this world. It is the Fa­ther’s will that mor­tal man should work per­sis­tently and con­sis­tently to­ward the bet­ter­ment of his es­tate on earth. In­tel­li­gent ap­pli­ca­tion would en­able man to over­come much of his earthly mis­ery.

• to suffer evil without c. is insufficient

159:5.11When Je­sus in­structed his apos­tles that they should, when one un­justly took away the coat, of­fer the other gar­ment, he re­ferred not so much to a lit­eral sec­ond coat as to the idea of do­ing some­thing pos­i­tive to save the wrong­doer in the place of the olden ad­vice to re­tal­i­ate—“an eye for an eye” and so on. Je­sus ab­horred the idea ei­ther of re­tal­i­a­tion or of be­com­ing just a pas­sive suf­ferer or vic­tim of in­jus­tice. On this oc­ca­sion he taught them the three ways of con­tend­ing with, and re­sist­ing, evil:

• laborers in vineyard complained they weren’t paid more

163:3.6“When evening came, this owner of the vine­yard said to his stew­ard: ‘Call the la­bor­ers and pay them their wages, be­gin­ning with the last hired and end­ing with the first.’ When those who were hired about five o’clock came, they re­ceived a denar­ius each, and so it was with each of the other la­bor­ers. When the men who were hired at the be­gin­ning of the day saw how the later com­ers were paid, they ex­pected to re­ceive more than the amount agreed upon. But like the oth­ers ev­ery man re­ceived only a denar­ius. And when each had re­ceived his pay, they com­plained to the house­holder, say­ing: ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour, and yet you have paid them the same as us who have borne the bur­den of the day in the scorch­ing sun.’

• over petty harassments and fictitious grievances

188:5.10When think­ing men and women look upon Je­sus as he of­fers up his life on the cross, they will hardly again per­mit them­selves to com­plain at even the sever­est hard­ships of life, much less at petty ha­rass­ments and their many purely fic­ti­tious grievances. His life was so glo­ri­ous and his death so tri­umphant that we are all en­ticed to a will­ing­ness to share both. There is true draw­ing power in the whole be­stowal of Mi­chael, from the days of his youth to this over­whelm­ing spec­ta­cle of his death on the cross.