Streams In the Desert for July

Li_ebo

 

Streams In the Desert for July 27    

"Prove me now." (Mal. 3:10.)

 

 

WHAT is God saying here but this: "My child, I still have windows in Heaven. They are yet in service. The bolts slide as easily as of old. The hinges have not grown rusty. I would rather fling them open, and pour forth, than keep them shut, and hold back. I opened them for Moses, and the sea parted. I opened them for Joshua, and Jordan rolled back. I opened them for Gideon, and hosts fled. I will open them for you─if you will only let Me. On this side of the windows, Heaven is the same rich storehouse as of old. The fountains and streams still overflow. The treasure rooms are still bursting with gifts. The lack is not on my side. It is on yours. I am waiting. Prove Me now. Fulfill the conditions, on your part. Bring in the tithes. Give Me a chance. --- Selected.

I can never forget my mother's very brief paraphrase of Malachi 3:10. The verse begins, "Bring ye the whole tithe in," and it ends up with "I will pour" the blessing out till you'll be embarrassed for space. Her paraphrase was this: Give all He asks; take all He promises." --- S. D. Gordon.

The ability of God is beyond our prayers, beyond our largest prayers! I have been thinking of some of the petitions that have entered into my supplication innumerable times. What have I asked for? I have asked for a cupful, and the ocean remains! I have asked for a sunbeam, and the sun abides! My best asking falls immeasurably short of my Father's giving: it is beyond that we can ask. --- J. H. Jowett.

"All the rivers of Thy grace I claim. Over every promise write my name." (Epn. 1:8-19.)

Li_ebo

 

Streams In the Desert for July 28    

"The Lord hath His way in the whirlwind and storm."(Nahum 1:3.)

 

 

I recollect, when a lad, and while attending a classical institute in the vicinity of Mount Pleasant, sitting on an elevation of that mountain, and watching a storm as it came up the valley. The heavens were filled with blackness, and the earth was shaken by the voice of thunder. It seemed as though that fair landscape was utterly changed, and its beauty gone never to return.

But the storm swept on, and passed out of the valley; and if I had sat in the same place on the following day, and said, "Where is that terrible storm, with all its terrible blackness?" the grass would have said, "Part of it is in me," and the daisy would have said, "Part of it is me." and the fruits and flowers and everything that grows out of the ground would have said, "Part of the storm is incandescent in me."

Have you asked to be made like your Lord? Have you longed for the fruit of the Spirit, and have you prayed for sweetness and gentleness and love?" Then fear not the stormy tempest that is at this moment sweeping through your life. A blessing is in the storm, and there will be the rich fruitage in the "afterward." --- Henry Ward Beecher.

The flowers live by the tears that fall
From the sad face of the skies;
And life would have no joys at all,
Were there no watery eyes.
Love thou thy sorrow: grief shall bring
Its own excuse in after years;
The rainbow! -see how fair a thing
God hath built up from tears.
─Henry S. Sutton.

Li_ebo

 

Streams In the Desert for July 29      

"Hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, which I have reserved against the day of trouble?" (Job 38:22, 23.)

 

 

OUR trials are great opportunities. Too often we look on them as great obstacles. It would be a haven of rest and an inspiration of unspeakable power if each of us would henceforth recognize every difficult situation as one of God's chosen ways of proving to us His love and look around for the signals of His glorious manifestations; then, indeed, would every cloud become a rainbow, and every mountain a path of ascension and a scene of transfiguration.

If we will look back upon the past, many of us will find that the very time our Heavenly Father has chosen to do the kindest things for us, and given us the richest blessings, has been the time we were strained and shut in on every side, God's jewels are often sent us in rough packages and by dark liveried servants, but within we find the very treasures of the King's palace and the Bridegroom's love. --- A. B. Simpson.

Trust Him in the dark, honor Him with unwavering confidence even in the midst of mysterious dispensations, and the recompense of such faith will be like the moulting of the eagle's plumes, which was said to give them a new lease of youth and strength. --- J. R. Macduff.

"If we could see beyond today,
As God can see;
If all the clouds should roll away,
The shadows flee;
O'er presents griefs we would not fret.
Each sorrow we would soon forget,
For many joys are waiting yet,
For you and me.

"If we could know beyond today,
As God doth know,
Why dearest treasures pass away,
And tears must flow;
And why the darioness leads to light,
Why dreary paths will soon grow bright;
Some day life's wrong will be made right,

"If we could see, if we could know;
We often say,
But God in love a veil doth throw,
Across our way;
We cannot see what lies before,
And so we cling to Him the more,
He leads us till this life is o'er; Trust and obey."

Li_ebo

 

Streams In the Desert for July 30    

"A cup of cold water only." (Matt. 10:42.)

 

WHAT am I to do? I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good work, therefore, any kindness, or any service I can render to any soul of man or animal, let me do it now. Let me not neglect or defer it, for I shall not pass this way again. --- An Old Quaker Saying.

It isn't the thing you do, dear,
It's the thing you leave undone,
Which gives you the bitter heartache
At the setting of the sun;
The tender word unspoken,
The letter you did not write,
The flower you might have sent, dear,
Are your haunting ghosts at night.

The stone you might have lifted
Out of your brother's way,
The bit of heartsome counsel
You were hurried too much to say;
The loving touch of the hand, dear,

The gentle and winsome tone,
That you had no time or thought for,
With troubles enough of your own.

These little acts of kindness,
So easily out of mind,
These chances to be angels,
Which even mortals find-
They come in night and silence,
Each chill reproachful wraith,
When hope is faint and flagging,
And a blight has dropped on faith.

For life is all too short, dear.
And sorrow is all too great,
To suffer our slow compassion
That tarries until too late.
And it's not the thing you do, dear,
It's the thing you leave undone,
Which gives you the bitter heartache,
At the setting of the sun.
─Adelaide Proctor.

Give what you have; to someone it may be better than you dare to think.

--- Longfellow.

Li_ebo

 

Streams In the Desert for July 31      

"He guided them by the skillfulness of his hands."(Psa. 78:72.)

 

WHEN you are doubtful as to your course, submit your judgment absolutely to the Spirit of God, and ask Him to shut against you every door but the right one...Meanwhile keep on as you are, and consider the absence of indication to be the indication of God's will that you are on His track...As you go down the long corridor, you will find that He has preceded you, and locked many doors which you would fain have entered; but be sure that beyond these there is one which He has left unlocked. Open it and enter, and you will find yourself face to face with a bend of the river of opportunity, broader and deeper than anything you had dared to imagine in your sunniest dreams. Launch forth upon it; it conducts to the open sea.

God guides us, often by circumstances. At one moment the way may seem utterly blocked; and then shortly afterward some trivial incident occurs, which might not seem much to others, but which to the keen eye of faith speaks volumes. Sometimes these things are repeated in various ways, in answer to prayer. They are not haphazard results of chance, but the opening up of circumstances in the direction in which we would walk. And they begin to multiply as we advance toward our goal, just as the lights do as we near a populous town, when darting through the land by night express. --- F. B. Meyer.

If you go to Him to be guided, He will guide you; but He will not comfort your distrust or half-trust of Him by showing you the chart of all His purposed concerning you. He will show you only into a way where, if you go cheerfully and trustfully forward, He will show you on still farther. --- Horace Bushnell.

As moves my fragile bark across the storm-swept sea.
Great waves beat o'er her side, as north wind blows;
Deep in the darkness hid lie threat'ning rocks and shoals;
But all of these, and more, my Pilot knows.

Sometimes when dark the night, and every light gone out,
I wonder to what port my frail ship goes;
Still though the night be long, and restless all my hours,
My distant good, I'm sure, my Pilot knows.
─Thomas Curtis Clark.

Li_ebo

 

Streams In the Desert for August 1    

"Surrender your very selves to God as living men who have risen from the dead," (Romans 6:13.)(Weymouth.)

 

 

I WENT one night to hear an address on consecration. No special message came to me from it, but as the speaker kneeled to pray, he dropped this sentence: "O Lord, Thou knowest we can trust the Man that died for us." And that was my message. I rose and walked down the street to the train; and as I walked, I pondered deeply all that consecration might mean to my life and─I was afraid. And then, above the noise and clatter of the street traffic came to me the message: "You can trust the Man that died for you."

I got into the train to ride homeward; and as I rode, I thought of the changes, the sacrifices, the disappointments which consecration might mean to me and─I was afraid.

I reached home and sought my room, and there upon my knees I saw my past life. I had been a Christian, an officer in the church, a Sunday─school superintendent, but had never definitely yielded my life to God.

Yet as I thought of the darling plans which might be baffled, of the cherished hopes to be surrendered, and the chosen profession which I might be called upon to abandon─I was afraid.

I did not see the better things God had for me, so my soul was shrinking back; and then for the last time, with a swift rush of convicting power, came to my innermost heart that searching message:

　"My child, you can trust the Man that died for you. If you cannot trust Him whom can you trust?"

　That settled it for me, for in a flash I saw that the Man who so loved me as to die for me could be absolutely trusted with all the concerns of the life He had saved.

Friend, you can trust the Man that died for you. You can trust Him to baffle no plan which is not best to be foiled, and to carry out every one which is for God's glory and your highest good. You can trust Him to lead you in the path which is the very best in this world for you. --- J. H. McC.

"Just as I am, thy love unknown.
Has broken every barrier down,
Now to be Thine, yea, Thine ALONE,
O Lamb of God, I come!"

"Life is not salvage to be saved out of the world, but an investment to be used in the world."

 

 

Li_ebo

 

Streams In the Desert for August 2    

"I will make all my mountains a way." (Isa. 49:11.)

 

 

GOD will make obstacles serve His purpose. We all nave mountains in our lives. There are people and things that threaten to bar our progress in the Divine life. Those heavy claims, that uncongenial occupation, that thorn in the flesh, that daily cross-we think that if only these were removed we might live purer, tenderer, holier lives; and often we pray for their removal.

"Oh, fools, and slow of heart!" These are the very conditions of achievement; they have been put into our lives as the means to the very graces and virtues for which we have been praying so long. Thou hast prayed for patience through long years, but there is something that tries thee beyond endurance; thou hast fled from it, evaded it, accounted it an unsurmountable obstacle to the desired attainment, and supposed that its removal would secure thy immediate deliverance and victory.

Not so! Thou wouldest gain only the cessation of temptations to impatience. But this would not be patience. Patience can be acquired only through just such trials as now seem unbearable.

Go back; submit thyself. Claim to be a partaker in the patience of Jesus. Meet thy trials in Him. There is nothing in life which harasses and annoys that may not become subservient to the highest ends. They are His mountains. He puts them there. We know that God will not fail to keep His promise. "God understandeth the way thereof and knoweth the place thereof. For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven;" and when we come to the foot of the mountains, we shall find the way. --- Christ in Isaiah, by Meyer.

"The meaning of trial is not only to test worthiness, but to increase it; as the oak is not only tested by the storms, but toughened by them."