Daily Devotional
August 26
Streams in the Desert
"It is not in me"(Job 28:14.)j hicn I said,"It is the e ocean; but it seemed REMEMBER a summer l ocean I need,"and I went to to say,"It is not in me!"The'ocean did not do for me what I thought it would. Then I said,"The mountains will rest me,"and I went to the mountains, and when I awoke in the morning there stood the grand moun¬ tain that I had wanted so much to see; but it said,"It not in me!"It did not satisfy. Ah! I needed the is no i in ocean of His love, and the high mountains of His truth within.
It was wisdom that the"depths"said they did not contain, and that could not be compared with jewels or gold or precious stones. Christ is wisdom and our deepest need. Our restless¬ ness within can only be met by the revelation of His eternal friendship and love for us.— Margaret Bottome.
"My heart is there! Where, on eternal hills, my loved one dwells Among the lilies and asphodels; Clad in the brightness of the Great White Throne, Glad in the smile of Him who sits thereon, The glory gilding all His wealth of hair And making His immortal face more fair — THERE IS MY TREASURE and my heart is there,"My heart is there!
With Him who made all earthly life so sweet, So fit to live, and yet to die so meet; So mild, so grand, so gentle and so brave, So ready to forgive, so strong to save.
His fair, pure Spirit makes the Heavens more fair, And thither rises all my longing prayer — THERE IS MY TREASURE and my heart is there."—Favorite poem of the late Chas. E. Cowman.
You cannot detain the eagle in the forest. You may gather around him a chorus of the choicest birds; you may give him a perch on the goodliest pine; you may charge winged messen¬ gers to bring him choicest dainties; but he will spurn them all.
Spreading his lofty wings, and with his eye on the Alpine cliff, he will soar away to his own ancestral halls amid the munition of rocks and the wild music of tempest and waterfall.
The soul of man, in its eagle soarings, will rest with nothing short of the Rock of Ages. Its ancestral halls are the halls of Heaven. Its munitions of rocks are the attributes of God. The sweep of its majestic flight is Eternity!"Lord, THOU hast been our dwelling place in all generations."— Macduff.
"My Home is God Himself"; Christ brought me there. I laid me down within His mighty arms; He took me up, and safe from all alarms He bore me"where no foot but His hath trod,"
Within the holiest at Home with God, And bade me dwell in Him, rejoicing there. 0 Holy Place! 0 Home divinely fair! And we, God's little ones, abiding there."My Home is God Himself"; it was not so!
A long, long road I traveled night and day, And sought to find within myself some way, Aught I could do, or feel to bring me near; Self effort failed, and I was filled with fear.
And then I found Christ was the only way, That I must come to Him and in Him stay. And God had told me so. And now"my Home is God,"and sheltered there, God meets the trials of my earthly life, God compasses me round from storm and strife, God takes the burden of my daily care.
O Wondrous Place! 0 Home divinely fair! And /, God's little one, safe hidden there. Lord, as I dwell in Thee and Thou in me, So make me dead to everything but Thee;
That as I rest within my Home most fair, My soul may evermore and only see My God in everything and everywhere; My Home is God. —Author Unknown. J August 27"And he took him aside from the multitude"(Mark 7:33.)
AUL not only stood the tests in Christian activity, but in the solitude of captivity. You may stand the strain of the most intense labor, coupled with severe suffering, and yet break down utterly when laid aside from all religious activities; when forced into close confinement in some prison house.
That noble bird, soaring the highest above the clouds and enduring the longest flights, sinks into despair when in a cage where it is forced to beat its helpless wings against its prison bars. You have seen the great eagle languish in its narrow cell with bowed head and drooping wings. What a picture of the sorrow of inactivity.
Paul in prison. That was another side of life. Do you want to see how he takes it? I see him looking out over the top of his prison wall and over the heads of his enemies. I see him write a document and sign his name—not the prisoner of Festus, nor of Caesar; not the victim of the Sanhedrin; but the—"prisoner of the Lord."He saw only the hand of God in it all.
To him the prison becomes a palace. It e corridors ring with shouts of triumphant praise and joy. Restrained from the missionary work he loved so well, he now built a new pulpit—a new witness stand—and from that place of bondage come some of the sweetest and most helpful ministries of Christian liberty. What precious messages of light come from those dark shadows of captivity.
Think of the long train of imprisoned saints who have fol¬ lowed in Paul's wake. For twelve long years Bunyan's lips were silenced in Bedford jail. It was there that he did the greatest and best work of his life. There he wrote the book that has been read next to the Bible. He says,"I was at home in prison and I sat me down and wrote, and wrote, for joy did make me write."
The wonderful dream of that long night has lighted the path¬ way of millions of weary pilgrims. That sweet-spirited French lady, Madam Guyon, lay long between prison walls. Like some caged birds that sing the sweeter for their confinement, the music of her soul has gone out far beyond the dungeon walls and scattered the desolation of many drooping hearts.
Oh, the heavenly consolation that has poured forth from places of solitude 1—S. C. Rees."Taken aside by Jesus, To feel the touch of His hand; To rest for a while in the shadow Of the Rock in a weary land.
"Taken aside by Jesus, In the loneliness dark and drear. Where no other comfort may reach me, Than His voice to my heart so dear."Taken a&ide by Jesus, To be quite alone with Him, To hear His wonderful tones of love *Mid the silence and shadows dim.
"Taken aside by Jesus, Shall I shrink from the desert place; When I hear as I never heard before, And see Him l face to face