I have always been encouraged by a certain devotional book Streams In The Dessert, and this week it was nothing less. I think I've read through the devotional several times, but it seems that God reveals to me new thoughts and insights every time.Last week I read these words:
"Some of life's storms-a great sorrow, a bitter disappointment, a crushing defeat-suddenly come upon us. Others may come slowly, appearing on the uneven edge of the horizon no larger that a person's hand. But trouble that seems so insignificant spreads until it covers the sky and overwhelms us.
Yet it is in that storm that God equips us for service. When God wants an oak tree, He plants it where the storms will shake it and the rains will beat down upon it. It is in the midnight battle with the elements that the oak develops its rugged fiber and becomes the king of the forest.
When God wants to make a person, He puts him into some storm. The history of humankind has always been rough and rugged. No one is complete until he has been out into the surge of the storm and has found the glorious fulfillment of the prayer O God, take me, break me, make me.
The wind that blows can never kill
the tree the God plants;
It blows toward east, and then toward west,
The tender leaves have little rest,
But any wind that blows is best.
The tree that God plans
Strikes deeper root, grows higher still,
Spreads greater limbs, for God's good will
Meets all its wants
There is no storm has power to blast
The tree God knows;
No thunderbolt, nor beating rain,
Nor lightning flash, nor hurricane;
When they are spent, it does remain,
The tree God knows,
Through every storm it still stands fast,
And from its first day to its last
Still fairer grows"
L.B. Cowman
