Tag: Faith

This following excerpt from “Streams In The Desert” was a great encouragement to me; this devotional book constantly blesses, encourages, and challenges me as I struggle from day to day.

When talking with a dear friend yesterday, she asked how she could pray specifically for me as I endure the medical treatments that are so hard for me. I told her that I need courage. Courage to endure them and be thankful for them; and also courage to pray for that courage! I find myself still praying for God to take this cup from me. But I am realizing (in my stubbornness) that I need to stop praying for that. The cup isn’t going away. He isn’t taking it anywhere. I need to start praying for courage to drink it. The poem here at the bottom of this excerpt reminds me of that: “we can do more than this, O Soul.” And so in my plight, this encouraged me & challenged me. Perhaps in your plight, whatever that is, it will do the same for you.

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“As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10).

The stoic scorns to shed a tear; the Christian is not forbidden to weep. The soul may be dumb with excessive grief, as the shearer’s scissors pass over the quivering flesh; or, when the heart is on the point of breaking beneath the meeting surges of trial, the sufferer may seek relief by crying out with a loud voice. But there is something even better.

They say that springs of sweet fresh water well up amid the brine of salt seas; that the fairest Alpine flowers bloom in the wildest and most rugged mountain passes; that the noblest psalms were the outcome of the profoundest agony of soul.

Be it so. And thus amid manifold trials, souls which love God will find reasons for bounding, leaping joy. Though deep call to deep, yet the Lord’s song will be heard in silver cadence through the night. And it is possible in the darkest hour that ever swept a human life to bless the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Have you learned this lesson yet? Not simply to endure God’s will, nor only to choose it; but to rejoice in it with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
–from TABF

I will be still, my bruised heart faintly murmured,
As o’er me rolled a crushing load of woe;
The cry, the call, e’en the low moan was stifled;
I pressed my lips; I barred the tear drop’s flow.

I will be still, although I cannot see it,
The love that bares a soul and fans pain’s fire;
That takes away the last sweet drop of solace,
Breaks the lone harp string, hides Thy precious lyre.

But God is love, so I will bide me, bide me–
We’ll doubt not, Soul, we will be very still;
We’ll wait till after while, when He shall lift us
Yes, after while, when it shall be His will.

And I did listen to my heart’s brave promise;
And I did quiver, struggling to be still;
And I did lift my tearless eyes to Heaven,
Repeating ever, “Yea, Christ, have Thy will.”

But soon my heart upspake from ‘neath our burden,
Reproved my tight-drawn lips, my visage sad:
“We can do more than this, O Soul,” it whispered.
“We can be more than still, we can be glad!”

And now my heart and I are sweetly singing–
Singing without the sound of tuneful strings;
Drinking abundant waters in the desert,
Crushed, and yet soaring as on eagle’s wings.
–S. P. W.

Seeking my God today with trepidation. Asking Him to oversee every drop of blood that was pulled from our veins this morning and now wings its way to various labs across the country. Begging Him to show His mercy to us, for the sake of His children and because of His own steadfast love!

Psalm 44:17-26

All this has come upon us,
though we have not forgotten You,
and we have not been false to Your covenant.
Our heart has not turned back,
nor have our steps departed from Your way;
yet You have broken us in the place of jackals
and covered us with the shadow of death.

If we had forgotten the name of our God
or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
would not God discover this?
For He knows the secrets of the heart.
Yet for Your sake we are killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

Awake! Why are You sleeping, O Lord?
Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever!
Why do You hide your face?
Why do You forget our affliction and oppression?
For our soul is bowed down to the dust;
our belly clings to the ground.
Rise up; come to our help!
Redeem us for the sake of Your steadfast love!

Must life be a failure for one compelled to stand still in enforced inaction and see the great throbbing tides of life go by? No; victory is then to be gotten by standing still, by quiet waiting. It is a thousand times harder to do this than it was in the active days to rush on in the columns of stirring life. It requires a grander heroism to stand and wait and not lose heart and not lose hope, to submit to the will of God, to give up work and honors to others, to be quiet, confident and rejoicing, while the happy, busy multitude go on and away. It is the grandest life “having done all, to stand.”

~J.R. Miller~

We must not only think of our waiting upon God, but also of what is more wonderful still, of God’s waiting upon us. The vision of Him waiting on us, will give new impulse and inspiration to our waiting upon Him. It will give us unspeakable confidence that our waiting cannot be in vain. Let us seek even now, at this moment, to in the spirit of waiting on God, to find out something of what it means. He has inconceivably glorious purposes, concerning every one of His children. And you ask, “How is it, if He waits to be gracious, that even after I come and wait upon Him, He does not give the help I seek, but waits on longer and longer?”

God is a wise husbandman, “who waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it.” He cannot gather the fruit till it is ripe. He knows when we are spiritually ready to receive the blessing to our profit and His glory. Waiting in the sunshine of His love is what will ripen the soul for His blessing. Waiting under the cloud of trial, that breaks in showers of blessings, is as needful. Be assured that if God waits longer than you could wish, it is only to make the blessing doubly precious. God waited four thousand years, till the fullness of time, ere He sent His Son. Our times are in His hands; He will avenge His elect speedily; He will make haste for our help, and not delay one hour too long.

~Andrew Murray~

Faith is to believe what we do not see, and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.

~Saint Augustine~

We see no reason for dealings so dark and mysterious, but He has a noble end and object in view; to see them as everlasting pillars and rafters in His heavenly Zion; to make them a “crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of our God.”

~Macduff~

There is no patience so hard as that which endures, “as seeing him who is invisible”; it is  the waiting for hope.
Give me this divine power of Thine, the power of Gethsemane. Give me the power to wait for hope itself, to look out from the casement where there are no stars. Give me the power, when the very joy that was set before me is gone, to stand unconquered amid the night and say, “To the eye of my Father it is perhaps shining still.” I shall reach the climax of strength when I have learned to wait for hope.

~George Matheson~