Alone In The Desert

Our heavenly Father sends us frequent troubles to try our faith. If our faith be worth anything, it will stand the test. Gilt is afraid of fire, but gold is not: the paste gem dreads to be touched by the diamond, but the true jewel fears no test. It is a poor faith which can only trust God when friends are true, the body full of health, and the business profitable; but that is true faith which holds by the Lord's faithfulness when friends are gone, when the body is sick, when spirits are depressed, and the light of our Father's countenance is hidden.

A faith which can say, in the direst trouble, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," is heaven-born faith. The Lord afflicts His servants to glorify Himself, for He is greatly glorified in the graces of His people, which are His own handiwork. When "tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope," the Lord is honoured by these growing virtues. We should never know the music of the harp if the strings were left untouched; nor enjoy the juice of the grape if it were not trodden in the winepress; nor discover the sweet perfume of cinnamon if it were not pressed and beaten; nor feel the warmth of fire if the coals were not utterly consumed.

The wisdom and power of the great Workman are discovered by the trials through which His vessels of mercy are permitted to pass. Present afflictions tend also to heighten future joy. There must be shades in the picture to bring out the beauty of the lights. Could we be so supremely blessed in heaven, if we had not known the curse of sin and the sorrow of earth? Will not peace be sweeter after conflict, and rest more welcome after toil? Will not the recollection of past sufferings enhance the bliss of the glorified? There are many other comfortable answers to the question with which we opened our brief meditation, let us muse upon it all day long.

(2) Providence of Loss

By Charles E.Cowman

"It came to pass . . . that the brook dried up"

(1 Kings 17:7).

The education of our faith is incomplete if we have not learned that there is a providence of loss, a ministry of

failing and of fading things, a gift of emptiness. The material insecurities of

life make for its spiritual establishment. The dwindling stream by which Elijah sat and mused is a true picture

of the life of each of us. "It came to pass . . . that the brook dried up"—that is the history of our yesterday, and

a prophecy of our morrows.

In some way or other we will have to learn the difference between trusting in the gift and trusting in the Giver. The

gift may be good for a while, but the Giver is the Eternal Love.

Cherith was a difficult problem to Elijah until he got to Zarephath, and then it was all as clear as daylight. God's

hard words are never His last words. The woe and the waste and the tears of life belong to the interlude and

not to the finale.

Had Elijah been led straight to Zarephath he would have missed something that helped to make him a wiser

prophet and a better man. He lived by faith at Cherith. And whensoever in your life and mine some spring of

earthly and outward resource has dried up, it has been that we might learn that our hope and help are in God

who made Heaven

and earth. --F. B. Meyer

Perchance thou, too, hast camped by such sweet waters,

And quenched with joy thy weary, parched soul's

thirst;

To find, as time goes on, thy streamlet alters

From what it was at first.

Hearts that have cheered, or soothed, or blest,

or strengthened;

Loves that have lavished so unstintedly;

Joys, treasured joys--have passed, as time hath

lengthened,

Into obscurity.

If thus, ah soul, the brook thy heart hath

cherished

Doth fail thee now--no more thy thirst assuage--

If its once glad refreshing streams have

perished,

Let HIM thy heart engage.

He will not fail, nor mock, nor disappoint thee;

His consolations change not with the years;

With oil of joy He surely will anoint thee,

And wipe away thy tears.

--J. D. Smith

(3) Bearing the Sting!

By Charles E.Cowman

"He opened not his mouth" (Isa. 53:7).

How much grace it requires to bear a misunderstanding rightly, and to receive an unkind judgment in holy

sweetness! Nothing tests the Christian character more than to have some evil thing said about him. This is the

 file that soon proves whether we are electro-plate or solid

gold. If we could only know the blessings that lie hidden in our trials we would say like David, when Shimei

cursed him, "Let him curse; . . . it may be . . . that the Lord will requite me good for his cursing this day."

Some people get easily turned aside from the grandeur of their life-work by pursuing their own grievances and

enemies, until their life gets turned into one little petty whirl of warfare. It is like a nest of hornets. You may

disperse the hornets, but you will probably get terribly stung, and get nothing for your pains, for even their

honey is not worth a search.

God give us more of His Spirit, "who, when he was reviled, reviled not again"; but "committed himself to him

 that judgeth righteously." "Consider him that endureth such contradiction of sinners against himself."

--A. B. Simpson

"Before you" He trod all the path of woe,

He took the sharp thrusts with His head bent low.

He knew deepest sorrow and pain and grief,

He knew long endurance without relief,

He took all the bitter from death's deep cup,

He kept not a blood-drop but gave all up.

"Before you" and for you, He won the fight

To bring you to glory and realms of light.

--L.S.P.

(4) Alone In The Desert!

By Charles E.Cowman

"And he took them, and went aside privately into a desert place" (Luke 9:10).

In order to grow in grace, we must be much alone. It is not in society that the soul grows most

vigorously. In one single quiet hour of prayer it will often make more progress than in days of

company with others. It is in the desert that the dew falls freshest and the air is purest.--Andrew

Bonar

"Come ye yourselves apart and rest awhile,

Weary, I know it, of the press and throng,

Wipe from your brow the sweat and dust of toil,

And in My quiet strength again be strong.

"Come ye aside from all the world holds dear,

For converse which the world has never known,

Alone with Me, and with My Father here,

With Me and with Ally Father not alone.

"Come, tell Me all that ye have said and done,

Your victories and failures, hopes and fears.

I know how hardly souls are wooed and won:

My choicest wreaths are always wet with tears.

"Come ye and rest; the journey is too great,

And ye will faint beside the way and sink;

The bread of life is here f or you to eat,

And here for you the wine of love to drink.

"Then fresh from converse with your Lord return,

And work till, daylight softens into even:

The brief hours are not lost in which ye learn

More, of your Master and His rest in Heaven."

(5) Through the Fire!

By Charles E.Cowman

"So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning" (Job 42:12).

Through his griefs Job came to his heritage. He was tried that his godliness might be confirmed.

Are not my troubles intended to deepen my character and to robe me in graces I had little of before?

I come to my glory through eclipses, tears, death. My ripest fruit grows against the

roughest wall. Job's afflictions left him with higher conceptions of God and lowlier thoughts of

himself. "Now," he cried, "mine eye seeth thee.

And if, through pain and loss, I feel God so near in His majesty that I bend low before Him and

pray, "Thy will be done," I gain very much. God gave Job glimpses of the future glory. In those

wearisome days and nights, he penetrated within the veil, and could say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth."

Surely the latter end of Job was more blessed than the beginning.--In the Hour of Silence

"Trouble never comes to a man unless she brings a nugget of gold in her hand."

Apparent adversity will finally turn out to be the advantage of the right if we are only willing

to keep on working and to wait patiently. How steadfastly the great victor souls have kept at

their work, dauntless and unafraid! There are blessings which we cannot obtain if we cannot

accept and endure suffering. There are joys that can come to us only through sorrow. There are

revelations of Divine truth which we can get only when earth's lights have gone out. There are

harvests which can grow only after the plowshare has done its work.--Selected

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed

with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation robes glittering with fire, and through their

tears have the sorrowful first seen the gates of Heaven. --Chapin

I shall know by the gleam and glitter

Of the golden chain you wear,

By your heart's calm strength in loving,

Of the fire you have had to bear.

Beat on, true heart, forever;

Shine bright, strong golden chain;

And bless the cleansing fire

And the furnace of living pain!

--Adelaide Proctor

(6) Mind The Checks!

By Charles E.Cowman

"And after the earthquake a fire; and after the fire a sound of gentle stillness" (1 Kings 19:12,

RV margin.)

A soul, who made rapid progress in her understanding of the Lord, was once asked the

secret of her easy advancement. She replied tersely, "Mind the checks." And the reason that

many of us do not know and better understand Him is, we do not give heed to His gentle checks, His delicate

restraints and constraints. His is a still, small voice.

A still voice can hardly be heard. It must be felt. A steady, gentle pressure upon the heart and mind like the touch

of a morning zephyr to your face. A small voice, quietly, almost timidly spoken in your heart, but if heeded growing

noiselessly clearer to your inner ear. His voice is for the ear of love, and love is intent upon hearing even faintest

whispers.

There comes a time also when love ceases to speak if not responded to, or believed in. He is love, and if you would

know Him and His voice, give constant ear to His gentle touches. In conversation, when about to utter some word,

give heed to that gentle voice, mind the check and refrain from speech. When about to pursue some course that

seems all clear and right and there comes quietly to your spirit a suggestion that has in it the force almost of a

conviction, give heed, even if changed plans seem highest folly from standpoint of human wisdom. Learn also to

wait on God for the unfolding of His will. Let God form your plans about everything in your mind and heart and then

let Him execute them. Do not possess any wisdom of your own. For many times His execution will seem so

contradictory to the plan He gave. He will seem to work against Himself. Simply listen, obey and trust God even

when it seems highest folly so to do. He will in the end make "all things work together," but so many times in the

first appearance of the outworking of His plans,

"In His own world He is content to play a losing game."

So if you would know His voice, never consider results or possible effects. Obey even when He

asks you to move in the dark. He Himself will be gloriously light in you. And there will spring up

rapidly in your heart an acquaintanceship and a fellowship with God which will be overpowering in

itself to hold you and Him together, even in severest testings and under most terrible pressures.--Way of Faith.

(7) GREEN PASTURES!

By Charles E.Cowman

“By Me if any man enter in, he shall….find pasture.” (John 10:9)

The shepherd takes care that his sheep are well fed. Christ also feeds His people, and leads them out to find

pasture. The Bible is His pasture-land, and the pasturage there is always good. Every chapter is a field of rich

grass. Some of these fields seem at first to be bare and sterile; but even in the barest there is enough pasture to

 feed a hungry soul.

Then there are the pasture-fields of prayer. These lie very close to the border of heaven. They are always up in

 the quiet valleys among the mountains. The Good Shepherd leads us to them through the gates of prayer. We

bow down in lowly humility, and enter with Him into the green pastures, and feed our souls until their hunger is

satisfied.

The Church is another of our Shepherd’s pasture-fields. We enter the gates of the sanctuary, and at once we find

 spiritual food. We find it in the services, in the ordinances, and in the sacraments.

In our common life in this world, if we are faithfully following Christ, we are continually in fields of rich pasture.

Christ never leads us into any places in which there is nothing to feed us. Even in the hot plains of trial and sorrow

 there is food. We sometimes think there is only barrenness in our toilsome life, filled with temptations, cares, and

sacrifices; but the Good Shepherd is ever with us, and there is always pasture.

Thus the whole world is a rich field when Jesus leads His flock. If any Christians are not well fed, it is because

they will not feed. The trouble must be that they do not hunger for spiritual food. The saddest thing in his world is

 not a passionate cry for bread, but a soul that has no hunger. Many souls die in the midst of the provision made

 by the Good Shepherd, not for want of food, but for want of appetite. - J.R.Miller

(8) I am with you

By Charles E.Cowman

“Lo, I am with you always, even to the close of the age.” (Matt.28:20)

Many with lacerated feet have come back to tell the story and to testify that when the very foundations of earth

 seemed giving way, He remained Whom no accident could take away, no chance ever change. This is the power

 of the Great Companionship.

Stretched on a rack, where they were torturing him piteously, one of the martyrs saw with cleansed and opened

eyes, a Young Man by his side – not yet fifty years old – Who kept wiping the beads of sweat from his brow.

When the fire is hottest, He is there. “And the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” (Daniel 3:25). “He that

 is near me is near the fire.” That is why the heart of the divine furnace is the place of the soul’s deepest peace.

There is always One beside us when we go through the fire.

When John G.Paton stood beside that lonely grave in the South Sea Islands; when he with his own hands made

 his wife’s coffin, and with his own hands dug her grace, the savages were looking on. They had never seen it in

 this fashion. That man must fill in the sepulcher, and soon leave it. He says, “If it had not been for Jesus and the

Presence that he vouchsafed me there, I would have gone mad and died beside that lonely grave.”

But John G.Paton found his Master with him through the dire darkness.

Sir Earnest Shackleton and two of his companions spent thirty-six hours among the snow mountains of New

Georgia, seeking for a station that meant life or death to them and their waiting crew on Elephant Island. Writing

 of that journey, he says, “It seemed to me, often, that we were four, not three.” He refers to “the guiding

Presence” that went with them. Then in closing he writes, “A record of our journey would be incomplete

without a reference to a subject so near to our hearts.”

Paul was not peculiarly privileged when he saw the Living One while en route to Damascus.

Kahil Gibran, the Syrian, explaining his remarkable modern painting of Jesus, said: “Last night I saw His face

again, clearer than I have ever seen it.”

Handel, composer of the Hallelujha Chorus, declared: “I did see God on His throne.”

During the terrible stress of war many affirmed positively that they saw “The White Comrade.”

Philips Brooks testified, “He is here. I know Him. He knows me. It is not figure of speech. It is the realest

thing in the world.”

No distant Lord have I,

Loving afar to be;

Made flesh for me, He cannot rest Until He rests in me.

Brother in joy or pain,

Bone of my bone was He;

Now – intimacy closer still –

He dwells Himself in me.

I need not journey far,

This dearest Friend to see;

Companionship is always mine,

He makes His home with me. – Maltbie Babcock

(9) The morning watch!

By Charles E.Cowman

"Come up in the morning . . . and present thyself unto we in the top of the mount" (Exod. 34:2).

The morning is the time fixed for my meeting the Lord. The very word morning is as a cluster of rich grapes.

Let us crush them, and drink the sacred wine. In the morning! Then God means me to be at my best in strength

and hope. I have not to climb in my weakness. In the night I have buried yesterday's fatigue, and in the morning

take a new lease of energy. Blessed is the day whose morning is sanctified! Successful is the day whose first

victory was won in prayer! Holy is the day whose dawn finds thee on the top of the mount!

My Father, I am coming. Nothing on the mean plain shall keep me away from the holy heights. At Thy bidding

 I come, so Thou wilt meet me. Morning on the mount! It will make me strong and glad all the rest of the day so

 well begun. --Joseph Parker.

Still, still with Thee,

when purple morning breaketh,

When the bird waketh, and the shadows flee;

Fairer than morning, lovelier than daylight,

Dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with Thee.

Alone with Thee, amid the mystic shadows,

The solemn hush of nature newly born;

Alone with Thee in breathless adoration,

In the calm dew and freshness of the morn.

As in the dawning o'er the waveless ocean,

The image of the morning-star doth rest,

So in this stillness,

Thou beholdest only Thine image in the waters of my breast.

When sinks the soul, subdued by toil, to slumber,

Its closing eyes look up to Thee in prayer;

Sweet the repose, beneath Thy wings o'er shadowing,

But sweeter still to wake and find Thee there. --Harriet Beecher Stowe

My mother's habit was every day, immediately after breakfast, to withdraw for an hour to her own room, and

to spend that hour in reading the Bible, in meditation and prayer. From that hour, as from a pure fountain, she

drew the strength and sweetness which enabled her to fulfill all her duties, and to remain unruffled by the

worries and pettinesses which are so often the trial of narrow neighborhoods. As I think of her life, and all it

 had to bear, I see the absolute triumph of Christian grace in the lovely ideal of a Christian lady. I never saw

her temper disturbed; I never heard her speak one word of anger, of calumny, or of idle gossip; I never observed

in her any sign of a single sentiment unbecoming to a soul which had drunk of the river of the water of life, and

which had fed upon manna in the barren wilderness.--Farrar

Give God the blossom of the day. Do not put Him off with faded leaves.

(10) SCENT OF THE ROSE!

By Charles E.Cowman

"Blow upon my garden that the spices may flow out" (S. of Sol. 4:16).

Some of the spices mentioned in this chapter are quite suggestive. The aloe was a bitter spice, and it tells of the

 sweetness of bitter things, the bitter-sweet, which has its own fine application that only those can understand

who have felt it. The myrrh was used to embalm the dead, and it tells of death to something. It is the sweetness

which comes to the heart after it has died to its self-will and pride and sin.

Oh, the inexpressible charm that hovers about some Christians simply because they bear upon the chastened

countenance and mellow spirit the impress of the cross, the holy evidence of having died to something that was

 once proud and strong, but is now forever at the feet of Jesus. It is the heavenly charm of a broken spirit and a

 contrite heart, the music that springs from the minor key, the sweetness that comes from the touch of the frost

 upon the ripened fruit.

And then the frankincense was a fragrance that came from the touch of the fire. It was the burning powder that

rose in clouds of sweetness from the bosom of the flames. It tells of the heart whose sweetness has been called

forth, perhaps by the flames of affliction, until the holy place of the soul is filled with clouds of praise and prayer.

Beloved, are we giving out the spices, the perfumes, the sweet odors of the heart? --The Love-Life of Our Lord.

"A Persian fable says: One day A wanderer found a lump of clay So redolent of sweet perfume Its odors scented

 all the room. 'What are thou? was his quick demand, 'Art thou some gem from Samarcand, Or spikenard in this

 rude disguise, Or other costly merchandise?' 'Nay: I am but a lump of clay.'

"'Then whence this wondrous perfume--say!' 'Friend, if the secret I disclose, I have been dwelling with the rose.

' Sweet parable! and will not those 'Who love to dwell with Sharon's rose, Distil sweet odors all around, Though

low and mean themselves are found? Dear Lord, abide with us that we May draw our perfume fresh from Thee."

(11) Take up your Cross!

By Charles E.Cowman

"Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me" (Mark 8:34).

The cross which my Lord bids me take up and carry may assume different shapes. I may have to content myself