Streams in the Desert - Sep 07
by L. B. E. Cowman and Jim Reimann
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. (Psalm 46: 1)
Why didn’t God help me sooner?” This is a question that is often asked, but it is not His will to act on your schedule. He desires to change you through the trouble and cause you to learn a lesson from it. He has promised, “I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him” (Ps. 91: 15). He will be with you in trouble all day and through the night. Afterward he will take you out of it, but not until you have stopped being restless and worried over it and have become calm and quiet. Then He will say, “It is enough.”
God uses trouble to teach His children precious lessons. Difficulties are intended to educate us, and when their good work is done, a glorious reward will become ours through them. There is a sweet joy and a real value in difficulties, for He regards them not as difficulties but as opportunities.
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Not always OUT of our troubled times,
And the struggles fierce and grim,
But IN—deeper IN—to our sure rest,
The place of our peace, in Him.
~Annie Johnson Flint
I once heard the following statement from a simple old man, and I have never forgotten it: “When God tests you, it is a good time to test Him by putting His promises to the test and then claiming from Him exactly what your trials have made necessary.”
There are two ways of getting out of a trial. One is simply to try to get rid of the trial, and then to be thankful when it is over. The other is to recognize the trial as a challenge from God to claim a larger blessing than we have ever before experienced, and to accept it with delight as an opportunity of receiving a greater measure of God’s divine grace.
In this way, even the Adversary becomes a help to us, and all the things that seem to be against us turn out to assist us along our way. Surely this is what is meant by the words “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 8: 37).
~A. B. Simpson
Reference
Cowman, L. B. E.; Reimann, Jim (2008-09-09). Streams in the Desert: 366 Daily Devotional Readings (p. 342). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
Categories: spiritual