was to show good will to neighbors, friends, business acquaintances, strangers; and suppose he regularly showed them unkindness, and dealt them injury behind their backs?
Of course, your boy or girl never does such things. But do you know anybody's child who does? Does such conduct seem to you a good reason why the child's parent should hesitate about granting his son or daughter special favors, special gifts, satisfying his or her heart's desires, granting his or her urgent requests?
Suppose
the child who asked and did not receive
the favor or the gift from his father
that he greatly wanted should try to learn
why. Do you suppose it would ever occur
to him to think that his own conduct had
anything to do with it? Do you suppose
he might suspect that, though his father
certainly loved him well, and though his
father provided regularly for most of
his wants, and though his father gave
him constantly many things that he needed
and wanted, still it might be just possible
that he, the son, made it hard for the
father to give him the special gifts,
the great things, the marked favors, the
"heart's desires" because of deliberate
disobedience
to and disregard of the father's special
requests?
Well, if
I am not getting from my heavenly Father
just what I want most to get, does it
ever occur to me that I may not be doing
the things He specially asks me to do?
What does
He ask me to do? Why, to show good will
to neighbors and
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