Streams in the Desert - May 21

I remembered my songs in the night. (Psalm 77: 6)

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I read somewhere of a little bird that will never sing the song its owner desires to hear while its cage is full of light. It may learn a note of this or a measure of that but will never learn an entire song until its cage is covered and the sunlight is shut out.

Many people are the same, never learning to sing until the shadows of darkness fall. We need to remember: the fabled nightingale sings with its breast against a thorn; it was on that Bethlehem night the song of angels was heard; and it was “at midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ ” (Matt. 25: 6).

It is indeed extremely doubtful that a person’s soul can really know the love of God in its richness and in its comforting, satisfying completeness until the skies are dark and threatening. Light emerges from darkness, and morning is born from the womb of night.

James Creelman once journeyed through the Balkans in search of Natalie, the exiled queen of Serbia. In one of his letters, he described his trip this way:

During that memorable journey, I learned that the world’s supply of rose oil comes from the Balkan Mountains. The thing that interested me most was that the roses had to be gathered during the darkest hours, with the pickers starting at one o’clock and finishing by two. Initially this practice seemed to me to be a relic of superstition or tradition, but as I investigated further, I learned that actual scientific tests had proved that a full forty percent of the fragrance of the roses disappeared in the light of day.

And it is also a real and unquestionable fact of human life and culture that a person’s character is strengthened most during the darkest days.
~Malcolm J. McLeod

Reference

Cowman, L. B. E.; Reimann, Jim (2008-09-09). Streams in the Desert: 366 Daily Devotional Readings (pp. 202-203). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

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