Streams in the Desert, "Rely on God, Not Self"

Rely on God, Not Self

"Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow" 

(Isa. 50:11).

What a solemn warning to those who walk in darkness

 and yet who try to help themselves out into the light. 

They are represented as kindling a fire, 

and compassing themselves with sparks. 

What does this mean?

Why, it means that when we are in darkness

 the temptation is to find a way

 without trusting in the Lord

 and relying upon Him.

 Instead of letting Him help us out, 

we try to help ourselves out. 

We seek the light of nature, and get the advice of our friends. We try the conclusions of our reason, and might almost be tempted to accept a way of deliverance which would not be of God at all.


All these are fires of our own kindling; rushlights that will surely lead us onto the shoals. And God will let us walk in the light of those sparks, but the end will be sorrow.


Beloved, do not try to get out of a dark place, except, in God's time and in God's way. The time of trouble is meant to teach you lessons that you sorely need.

Premature deliverance may frustrate God's work of grace in your life. 

Just commit the whole situation to Him.

 Be willing to abide in darkness so long as you have His presence. 

Remember that it is better to walk in the dark with God than to walk alone in the light.  

--The Still Small Voice

Cease meddling with God's plans and will. You touch anything of His, and you mar the work. You may move the hands of a clock to suit you, but you do not change the time; so you may hurry the unfolding of God's will, but you harm and do not help the work. You can open a rosebud but you spoil the flower. Leave all to Him. Hands down. Thy will, not mine.  

--Stephen Merritt

HIS WAY

God bade me go when I would stay

('Twas cool within the wood);

I did not know the reason why.

I heard a boulder crashing by

Across the path where I stood.

He bade me stay when I would go;

"Thy will be done," I said.

They found one day at early dawn,

Across the way I would have gone,

A serpent with a mangled head.

No more I ask the reason why,

Although I may not see

The path ahead, His way I go;

For though I know not, He doth know,

And He will choose safe paths for me.

--The Sunday School Times

Streams in the Desert, "without faith it is impossible"

Desperate Days


"But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."

 (Heb. 11:6).

The faith for desperate days.

The Bible is full of such days. Its record is made up of them, its songs are inspired by them, its prophecy is concerned with them, and its revelation has come through them.


The desperate days are the stepping-stones in the path of light. They seem to have been God's opportunity and man's school of wisdom.


There is a story of an Old Testament love feast in Psalm 107, and in every story of deliverance the point of desperation gave God His chance. The "wit's end" of desperation was the beginning of God's power. Recall the promise of seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sands of the sea, to a couple as good as dead. 


Read again the story of the Red Sea and its deliverance, and of Jordan with its ark standing mid-stream. Study once more the prayers of Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Hezekiah, when they were sore pressed and knew not what to do. Go over the history of Nehemiah, Daniel, Hosea, and Habakkuk. 


Stand with awe in the darkness of Gethsemane, and linger by the grave in Joseph's garden through those terrible days. Call the witnesses of the early Church, and ask the apostles the story of their desperate days.

Desperation is better than despair.

Faith did not make our desperate days.

 Its work is to sustain and solve them.

 The only alternative to a desperate faith is despair,

 and faith holds on and prevails.

There is no more heroic example of desperate faith than that of the three Hebrew children. The situation was desperate, but they answered bravely, 


"Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."

 I like that, "but if not !"

I have only space to mention Gethsemane. Ponder deeply its "Nevertheless." "If it is possible...nevertheless!" Deep darkness had settled upon the soul of our Lord. Trust meant anguish unto blood and darkness to the descent of hell--Nevertheless! Nevertheless!!


Now get your hymn book and sing your favorite hymn of desperate faith.  --Rev. S. Chadwick

"When obstacles and trials seem

Like prison walls to be,

I do the little I can do

And leave the rest to Thee.

"And when there seems no chance, no change,

From grief can set me free,

Hope finds its strength in helplessness,

And calmly waits for Thee."

Dare to be definite with God ~ Streams in the Desert

Be Definite in Prayer

"And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee: Deliver me, I pray thee" (Gen. 32:9, 11).

There are many healthy symptoms in that prayer. In some respects it may serve as a mould into which our own spirits may pour themselves, when melted in the fiery furnace of sorrow.

He began by quoting God's promise: "Thou saidst." He did so twice (9 and 12). Ah, he has got God in his power then! God puts Himself within our reach in His promises; and when we can say to Him, "Thou saidst," He cannot say nay. He must do as He has said. If Herod was so particular for his oath's sake, what will not our God be? Be sure in prayer, to get your feet well on a promise; it will give you purchase enough to force open the gates of heaven, and to take it by force. 

--Practical Portions for the Prayer-life

Jesus desires that we shall be definite in our requests, and that we shall ask for some special thing.

"What will ye that I shall do unto you?"

is the question that He asks of every one who in affliction and trial comes to Him. Make your requests with definite earnestness if you would have definite answers. Aimlessness in prayer accounts for so many seemingly unanswered
prayers.

Be definite in your petition. Fill out your check for something definite, and it will be cashed at the bank of Heaven when presented in Jesus' Name.

Dare to be definite with God. --Selected
Miss Havergal has said: "Every year, I might almost say every day, that I live, I seem to see more clearly how all the rest and gladness and power of our Christian life hinges on one thing; and that is, taking God at His word, believing that He really means exactly what He says, and accepting the very words in which He reveals His goodness and grace, without substituting others or altering the precise modes and tenses which He has seen fit to use."
Bring Christ's Word--Christ's promise, and Christ's sacrifice--His blood, with thee, and not one of Heaven's blessings can be denied thee. -Adam Clarke

Streams in the Desert, "Wait on God's Time"

Wait on God's Time

"Sarah bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him" 

(Gen. 21:2).

The counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of His heart to all 

generations" (Psalm 33:11).

But we must be prepared to wait God's time. 

God has His set times. 

It is not for us to know them; indeed, we cannot know them; we must wait for them.

If God had told Abraham in Haran that he must wait for thirty years until he pressed the promised child to his bosom, his heart would have failed him.

So, in gracious love, the length of the weary years was hidden, and only as they were nearly spent, and there were only a few more months to wait, God told him that "according to the time of life, Sarah shall have a son." (Gen. 18:14).

The set time came at last; and then the laughter that filled the patriarch's home made the aged pair forget the long and weary vigil.

Take heart, waiting one, thou waitest for One who cannot disappoint thee; and who will not be five minutes behind the appointed moment: ere long "your sorrow shall be turned into joy."

Ah, happy soul, when God makes thee laugh! Then sorrow and crying shall flee away forever, as darkness before the dawn.  --Selected

It is not for us who are passengers, to meddle with the chart and with the compass. Let that all-skilled Pilot alone with His own work. --Hall

"Some things cannot be done in a day. God does not make a sunset glory in a moment, but for days may be massing the mist out of which He builds His palaces beautiful in the west."

"Some glorious morn--but when? Ah, who shall say?
The steepest mountain will become a plain,
And the parched land be satisfied with rain.
The gates of brass all broken; iron bars,
Transfigured, form a ladder to the stars.
Rough places plain, and crooked ways all straight,
For him who with a patient heart can wait.
These things shall be on God's appointed day:
It may not be tomorrow--yet it may."

Streams in the Desert, " They cry unto the Lord"

At Wit's End

"At their wit's end, they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out" 

(Ps. 107:27, 28).

Are you standing at "Wit's End Corner,"
Christian, with troubled brow?
Are you thinking of what is before you,
And all you are bearing now?

 
Does all the world seem against you,
And you in the battle alone?
Remember--at "Wit's End Corner"
Is just where God's power is shown.

Are you standing at "Wit's End Corner,"
Blinded with wearying pain,
Feeling you cannot endure it,
You cannot bear the strain,

 
Bruised through the constant suffering,
Dizzy, and dazed, and numb?
Remember--at "Wit's End Corner"
Is where Jesus loves to come.

Are you standing at "Wit's End Corner"?
Your work before you spread,
All lying begun, unfinished,
And pressing on heart and head,

 
Longing for strength to do it,
Stretching out trembling hands?
Remember--at. "Wit's End Corner"
The Burden-bearer stands.

Are you standing at "Wit's End Corner"?
Then you're just in the very spot
To learn the wondrous resources
Of Him who faileth not:

 
No doubt to a brighter pathway
Your footsteps will soon be moved,
But only at "Wit's End Corner"
Is the "God who is able" proved.

--Antoinette Wilson

Do not get discouraged; it may be the last key in the bunch that opens the door. --Stansifer

Streams in the Desert, "Shall I refuse to drink the cup of sorrow"

"Shall I refuse to drink the cup of sorrow which the Father has given me to drink?"

(John 18:11, Weymouth).

God takes a thousand times more pains with us than the artist with his picture, by many touches of sorrow, and by many colors of circumstance, to bring us into the form which is the highest and noblest in His sight, if only we receive His gifts of myrrh in the right spirit.

But when the cup is put away, and these feelings are stifled or unheeded, a greater injury is done to the soul that can ever be amended. For no heart can conceive in what surpassing love God giveth us this myrrh; yet this which we ought to receive to our souls' good we suffer to pass by us in our sleepy indifference, and nothing comes of it.

Then we come and complain: "Alas, Lord! I am so dry, and it is so dark within me!" I tell thee, dear child, open thy heart to the pain, and it will do thee more good than if thou wert full of feeling and devoutness. --Tauler

"The cry of man's anguish went up to God,

'Lord take away pain:

The shadow that darkens the world Thou hast made,

The close-coiling chain

That strangles the heart, the burden that weighs

On the wings that would soar,

Lord, take away pain from the world Thou hast made,

That it love Thee the more.'

"Then answered the Lord to the cry of His world:

'Shall I take away pain,

And with it the power of the soul to endure,

Made strong by the strain?

Shall I take away pity, that knits heart to heart

And sacrifice high?

Will ye lose all your heroes that lift from the fire

White brows to the sky?

Shall I take away love that redeems with a price

And smiles at its loss?

Can ye spare from your lives that would climb unto Me

The Christ on His cross?"

Streams in the Desert, "Trust"

Attitude of Trust

"And it came to pass, before he had done speaking...and he said, Blessed be Jehovah...who hath not forsaken his lovingkindness and his truth" (Gen. 24:15, 27).

Every right prayer is answered before the prayer itself is finished--before we have "done speaking." 

This is because God has pledged His Word to us that whatsoever we ask in Christ's name (that is, in oneness with Christ and His will) and in faith, shall be done.

As God's Word cannot fail, whenever we meet those simple conditions in prayer, the answer to our prayer has been granted and completed in Heaven as we pray, even though its showing forth on earth may not occur until long afterward.

So it is well to close every prayer with praise to God for the answer that He has already granted; He who never forsakes His loving-kindness and His truth. (See Daniel 9:20-27 and 10:12.) --Messages for the Morning Watch

When we believe for a blessing, we must take the attitude of faith, and begin to act and pray as if we had the blessing. We must treat God as if He had given us our request. We must lean our weight over upon Him for the thing that we have claimed, and just take it for granted that He gives it, and is going to continue to give it. 

This is the attitude of trust.

When the wife is married, she at once falls into a new attitude, and acts in accordance with the fact; and so when we take Christ as our Savior, as our Sanctifier, as our Healer, or as our Deliverer, He expects us to fall into the attitude of recognizing Him in the capacity that we have claimed, and expect Him to be to us all that we have trusted Him for. -Selected

"The thing I ask when God doth bid me pray,

Begins in that same act to come my way."

Streams in the Desert, "I was crushed"

"I was crushed...so much so that I despaired even of life, but that was to make me rely not on myself, but on the God who raises the dead" 

(2 Cor. 1:8, 9).

"Pressed out of measure and pressed to all length;
Pressed so intensely it seems, beyond strength;
Pressed in the body and pressed in the soul,
Pressed in the mind till the dark surges roll.
Pressure by foes, and a pressure from friends.
Pressure on pressure, till life nearly ends.

"Pressed into knowing no helper but God;
Pressed into loving the staff and the rod.
Pressed into liberty where nothing clings;
Pressed into faith for impossible things.
Pressed into living a life in the Lord,
Pressed into living a Christ-life outpoured."

The pressure of hard places makes us value life. Every time our life is given back to us from such a trial, it is like a new beginning, and we learn better how much it is worth, and make more of it for God and man. 

The pressure helps us to understand the trials of others, and fits us to help and sympathize with them.

There is a shallow, superficial nature, that gets hold of a theory or a promise lightly, and talks very glibly about the distrust of those who shrink from every trial; but the man or woman who has suffered much never does this, but is very tender and gentle, and knows what suffering really means. 

This is what Paul meant when he said, "Death worketh in you."

Trials and hard places are needed to press us forward, even as the furnace fires in the hold of that mighty ship give force that moves the piston, drives the engine, and propels that great vessel across the sea in the face of the winds and waves.  --A. B. Simpson

"Out of the presses of pain,
Cometh the soul's best wine;
And the eyes that have shed no rain,
Can shed but little shine."

Streams in the Desert ,"Doing the duty is our part "

Instant Obedience

"In the selfsame day, as God had said unto him" (Gen. 17:23).

Instant obedience is the only kind of obedience there is; delayed obedience is disobedience. Every time God calls us to any duty, He is offering to make a covenant with us;  doing the duty is our part and He will do His part in special blessing.



The only way we can obey is to obey "in the selfsame day," as Abraham did. To be sure, we often postpone a duty and then later on do it as fully as we can. It is better to do this than not to do it at all. But it is then, at the best, only a crippled, disfigured, half-way sort of duty-doing; and a postponed duty never can bring the full blessing that God intended, and that it would have brought if done at the earliest possible moment.



It is a pity to rob ourselves, along with robbing God and others, by procrastination. "In the selfsame day" is the Genesis way of saying, "Do it now."  --Messages for the Morning Watch



Luther says that "a true believer will crucify the question, 'Why?' He will obey without questioning." I will not be one of those who, except they see signs and wonders, will in no wise believe. I will obey without questioning.

"Ours not to make reply,
Ours not to reason why,
Ours but to do and die."

Obedience is the fruit of faith; patience, the bloom on the fruit.  --Christina Rossetti

We Wrestle Not Against Flesh and Blood

"Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days" (Dan. 10:12, 13).



We have wonderful teaching here on prayer, and we are shown the direct hindrance from Satan.



Daniel had fasted and prayed twenty-one days, and had a very hard time in prayer.


As far as we read the narrative, it was not because Daniel was not a good man, nor because his prayer was not right; but it was because of a special attack of Satan.


The Lord started a messenger to tell Daniel that his prayer was answered the moment Daniel began to pray; but an evil angel met the good angel and wrestled with him, hindering him. There was a conflict in the heavens; and Daniel seemed to go through an agony on earth the same as that which was going on in the heavens.



"We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers... against wicked spirits in high places" (Eph. 6:12, margin).



Satan delayed the answer three full weeks. Daniel nearly succumbed, and Satan would have been glad to kill him; but God will not suffer anything to come above that we "are able to bear."



Many a Christian's prayer is hindered by Satan; but you need not fear when your prayers and faith pile up; for after a while they will be like a flood, and will not only sweep the answer through, but will also bring some new accompanying blessing. --Sermon

Hell does its worst with the saints. 

The rarest souls have been tested with high pressures and temperatures, but Heaven will not desert them.  --W. L. Watkinson

Streams in the Desert : "It is the Lord,"

Sailing Through the Tempest

"We went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place" (Ps. 66:12).

Paradoxical though it be, only that man is at rest who attains it through conflict. This peace, born of conflict, is not like the deadly hush preceding the tempest, but the serene and pure-aired quiet that follows it.


It is not generally the prosperous one, who has never sorrowed, who is strong and at rest. His quality has never been tried, and he knows not how he can stand even a gentle shock. He is not the safest sailor who never saw a tempest; he will do for fair-weather service, but when the storm is rising, place at the important post the man who has fought out a gale, who has tested the ship, who knows her hulk sound, her rigging strong, and her anchor-flukes able to grasp and hold by the ribs of the world.


When first affliction comes upon us, how everything gives way! Our clinging, tendril hopes are snapped, and our heart lies prostrate like a vine that the storm has torn from its trellis; but when the first shock is past, and we are able to look up, and say, "It is the Lord," faith lifts the shattered hopes once more, and binds them fast to the feet of God. Thus the end is
confidence, safety, and peace. --Selected

The adverse winds blew against my life;
My little ship with grief was tossed;
My plans were gone--heart full of strife,
And all my hope seemed to be lost--
"Then He arose"--one word of peace.
"There was a calm"--a sweet release.

A tempest great of doubt and fear
Possessed my mind; no light was there
To guide, or make my vision clear.
Dark night! 'twas more than I could bear--
"Then He arose," I saw His face--
"There was a calm" filled with His grace.

My heart was sinking 'neath the wave
Of deepening test and raging grief;
All seemed as lost, and none could save,
And nothing could bring me relief--
"Then He arose"--and spoke one word,
"There was a calm!" IT IS THE LORD..
--L. S. P.

Streams in the Desert: Lie Still and Trust

Lie Still and Trust

"I had fainted unless…!(Ps. 27:13).

"FAINT NOT!"

How great is the temptation at this point! How the soul sinks, the heart grows sick, and the faith staggers under the keen trials and testings which come into our lives in times of special bereavement and suffering.

"I cannot bear up any longer, I am fainting under this providence. What shall I do? God tells me not to faint. But what can one do when he is fainting?"

What do you do when you are about to faint physically? You cannot do anything. You cease from your own doings. In your faintness, you fall upon the shoulder of some strong loved one. You lean hard. You rest. You lie still and trust.

It is so when we are tempted to faint under affliction. God's message to us is not, "Be strong and of good courage," for He knows our strength and courage have fled away. But it is that sweet word, "Be still, and know that I am God."

Hudson Taylor was so feeble in the closing months of his life that he wrote a dear friend: "I am so weak I cannot write; I cannot read my Bible; I cannot even pray. I can only lie still in God's arms like a little child, and trust."

This wondrous man of God with all his spiritual power came to a place of physical suffering and weakness where he could only lie still and trust.

And that is all God asks of you, His dear child, when you grow faint in the fierce fires of affliction. Do not try to be strong. Just be still and know that He is God, and will sustain you, and bring you through.

"God keeps His choicest cordials for our deepest faintings."

"Stay firm and let thine heart take courage" (Psa. 27:14,  --After Osterwald).

Stay firm, He has not failed thee

In all the past,

And will He go and leave thee

To sink at last?

Nay, He said He will hide thee

Beneath His wing;

And sweetly there in safety

Thou mayest sing.

–Selected