Charles E. Cowman - Streams in the Desert

"Lord, there is none beside thee to help." (2 Chron. 14:11, RV).

Remind God of His entire responsibility. "There is none beside thee to help." The odds against Asa were enormous. There was a million of men in arms against him, besides three hundred chariots. It seemed impossible to hold his own against that vast multitude. There were no allies who would come to his help; his only hope, therefore, was in God. It may be that your difficulties have been allowed to come to so alarming a pitch that you may be compelled to renounce all creature aid, to which in lesser trials you have had recourse, and cast yourself back on your Almighty Friend.

Put God between yourself and the foe. To Asa's faith, Jehovah seemed to stand between the might of Zerah and himself, as one who had no strength. Nor was he mistaken. We are told that the Ethiopians were destroyed before the Lord and before His host, as though celestial combatants flung themselves against the foe in Israel's behalf, and put the large host to rout, so that Israel had only to follow up and gather the spoil. Our God is Jehovah of hosts, who can summon unexpected reinforcements at any moment to aid His people. Believe that He is there between you and your difficulty, and what baffles you will flee before Him, as clouds before the gale. --F. B. Meyer

"When nothing whereon to lean remains,

When strongholds crumble to dust;

When nothing is sure but that God still reigns,

That is just the time to trust.

"'Tis better to walk by faith than sight,

In this path of yours and mine;

And the pitch-black night, when there's no outer light

Is the time for faith to shine."

Abraham believed God, and said to sight,

"Stand back!" and to the laws of nature,

"Hold your peace!" and to a misgiving heart,

"Silence, thou lying tempter!" He believed God.

--Joseph Parker

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"When thou passest through the waters...they shall not overflow thee" (Isa. 43:2).

God does not open paths for us in advance of our coming. He does not promise help before help is needed. He does not remove obstacles out of our way before we reach them. Yet when we are on the edge of our need, God's hand is stretched out.

Many people forget this, and are forever worrying about difficulties which they foresee in the future. They expect that God is going to make the way plain and open before them, miles and miles ahead; whereas He has promised to do it only step by step as they may need. You must get to the waters and into their floods before you can claim the promise. Many people dread death, and lament that they have not "dying grace." Of course, they will not have dying grace when they are in good health, in the midst of life's duties, with death far in advance. Why should they have it then? Grace for duty is what they need then, living grace; then dying grace when they come to die.

--J. R. M.

"When thou passest through the waters"

Deep the waves may be and cold,

But Jehovah is our refuge,

And His promise is our hold;

For the Lord Himself hath said it,

He, the faithful God and true:

"When thou comest to the waters

Thou shalt not go down, BUT THROUGH."

Seas of sorrow, seas of trial,

Bitterest anguish, fiercest pain,

Rolling surges of temptation

Sweeping over heart and brain

They shall never overflow us

For we know His word is true;

All His waves and all His billows

He will lead us safely through.

Threatening breakers of destruction,

Doubt's insidious undertow,

Shall not sink us, shall not drag us

Out to ocean depths of woe;

For His promise shall sustain us,

Praise the Lord, whose Word is true!

We shall not go down, or under,

For He saith, "Thou passest THROUGH."

--Annie Johnson Flint

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"I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content" (Phil. 4:11).

Paul, denied of every comfort, wrote the above words in his dungeon. A story is told of a king who went into his garden one morning, and found everything withered and dying. He asked the oak that stood near the gate what the trouble was. He found it was sick of life and determined to die because it was not tall and beautiful like the pine. The pine was all out of heart because it could not bear grapes, like the vine. The vine was going to throw its life away because it could not stand erect and have as fine fruit as the peach tree. The geranium was fretting because it was not tall and fragrant like the lilac; and so on all through the garden. Coming to a heart's-ease, he found its bright face lifted as cheery as ever. "Well, heart's-ease, I'm glad, amidst all this discouragement, to find one brave little flower. You do not seem to be the least disheartened." "No, I am not of much account, but I thought that if you wanted an oak, or a pine, or a peach tree, or a lilac, you would have planted one; but as I knew you wanted a heart's-ease, I am determined to be the best little heart's-ease that I can."

"Others may do a greater work,

But you have your part to do;

And no one in all God's heritage

Can do it so well as you."

They who are God's without reserve, are in every state content; for they will only what He wills, and desire to do for Him whatever He desires them to do; they strip themselves of everything, and in this nakedness find all things restored an hundredfold.

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"I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing"

(Ezek. 34:26).

What is thy season this morning? Is it a season of drought? Then that is the season for showers. Is it a season of great heaviness and black clouds? Then that is the season for showers. "As thy day so shall thy strength be." "I will give thee showers of blessing." The word is in the plural. All kinds of blessings God will send. All God's blessings go together, like links in a golden chain. If He gives converting grace, He will also give comforting grace. He will send "showers of blessings." Look up today, O parched plant, and open thy leaves and flowers for a heavenly watering. --Spurgeon

"Let but thy heart become a valley low,

And God will rain on it till it will overflow."

Thou, O Lord, canst transform my thorn into a flower. And I want my thorn transformed into a flower. Job got the sunshine after the rain, but has the rain been all waste? Job wants to know, I want to know, if the shower had nothing to do with the shining. And Thou canst tell me Thy Cross can tell me. Thou hast crowned Thy sorrow. Be this my crown, O Lord. I only triumph in Thee when I have learned the radiance of the rain. --George Matheson

The fruitful life seeks showers as well as sunshine.

"The landscape, brown and sere beneath the sun,

Needs but the cloud to lift it into life;

The dews may damp the leaves of tree and flower,

But it requires the cloud-distilled shower

To bring rich verdure to the lifeless life.

"Ah, how like this, the landscape of a life:

Dews of trial fall like incense, rich and sweet;

But bearing little in the crystal tray

Like nymphs of night, dews lift at break of day

And transient impress leave, like lips that meet.

"But clouds of trials, bearing burdens rare,

Leave in the soul, a moisture settled deep:

Life kindles by the magic law of God;

And where before the thirsty camel trod,

There richest beauties to life's landscape leap.

"Then read thou in each cloud that comes to thee

The words of Paul, in letters large and clear:

So shall those clouds thy soul with blessing feed,

And with a constant trust as thou dost read,