* Fretfulness has a tendency to make us doubt God and his wisdom: how natural for us to think that if we had the power that he has we would put a stop to such things. 

* It has a tendency to make us murmur and to be dissatisfied. 

* It is likely to discourage us; and when we are discouraged, we are likely to murmur against the way things appear to be going. 

* Fretfulness is almost certain to take the sweetness out of our hearts and out of our communion with God. 

* It will lead to a loss of spirituality. 

* It will rob us of spiritual tone.

When we are fretting we may think that we are doing the best we can, but we are not. We may think that we can not help fretting, but we can. There is a way in which we may possess control of ourselves and cast the burden of the responsibility upon God, and he will bear it if we do thus. 

We have to decide that we will be happy no matter what happens, no matter what the conduct of others may be, no matter what obstacles they place in our way, no matter what burdens they may throw upon us. We will be happy anyway, because God has willed that we should be happy. 

If we see things going wrong we should take the burden to the Lord, saying: "Lord, thou must bear the responsibility of these things. My shoulders were not made to bear these burdens. They are thine. I give them over to thee. If anything is to be accomplished, thou must do it." 

Then we must take our hands off. We must let the thing go, treat it as something that is none of our business, and let God handle the situation.

(An excerpt from a sermon by Charles W Naylor)