Are you familiar with Streams in the Desert which is a daily devotional by L.B. Cowman?

2016-08-22T11:47:05-04:00

Today's devotional struck me as being both poignant and sublime so I wanted to introduce one of my favorite daily devotionals which was written by a missionary to China in the early 20th century. She wrote this devotional as she was ministering to her dying husband. She shared it with some, had some printed and the response was overwhelming so that it has been one of the most widely read Christina devotionals. I highly recommend it.
Streams In The Desert; August 22;
No Miracles
and the rest were to follow, some on planks and some on pieces of the ship. And in this way all were brought safely to land.—Acts 27:44 NET

The marvelous story of Paul’s voyage to Rome, with its trials and triumphs, is a fine pattern of the lights and shades of the way of faith all through the story of human life. The remarkable feature of it is the hard and narrow places which we find intermingled with God’s most extraordinary interpositions and providences.

It is the common idea that the pathway of faith is strewn with flowers, and that when God interposes in the life of His people, He does it on a scale so grand that He lifts us quite out of the plane of difficulties. The actual fact, however, is that the real experience is quite contrary. The story of the Bible is one of alternate trial and triumph in the case of everyone of the cloud of witnesses from Abel down to the latest martyr.

Paul, more than anyone else, was an example of how much a child of God can suffer without being crushed or broken in spirit. On account of his testifying in Damascus, he was hunted down by persecutors and obliged to fly for his life. but we behold no heavenly chariot transporting the holy apostle amid thunderbolts of flame from the reach of his foes, but “through a window in a basket,” was he let down over the walls of Damascus and so escaped their hands. In an old clothes basket, like a bundle of laundry, or groceries, the servant of Jesus Christ was dropped from the window and ignominiously fled from the hate of his foes.

Again we find him left for months in the lonely dungeons; we find him telling of his watchings, his fastings, and his desertion by friends, of his brutal and shameful beatings, and here even after God has promised to deliver him, we see him for days left to toss upon a stormy sea, obliged to stand guard over the treacherous seaman, and at last when the deliverance comes, there is no heavenly galley sailing from the skies to take off the noble prisoner; there is no angel form walking along the waters and stilling the raging breakers; there is no supernatural sign of the transcendent miracle that is being wrought; but one is compelled to seize a spar, another a floating plank, another to climb on a fragment of the wreck, another to strike out and swim for his life.

Here is God’s pattern for our own lives. Here is a Gospel of help for people that have to live in this every day world with real and ordinary surroundings, and a thousand practical conditions which have to be met in a thoroughly practical way.

God’s promises and God’s providences do not lift us out of the plane of common sense and commonplace trial, but it is through these very things that faith is perfected, and that God loves to interweave the golden threads of His love along the warp and woof of our every day experience.—Hard Places in the Way of Faith COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Capt Christopher Mueller Capt Seid Waddell CW5 Private RallyPoint Member CSM Charles Hayden SMSgt Minister Gerald A. Thomas SGM David W. Carr LOM, DMSM MP SGT SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" SSgt Private RallyPoint Member SGT Private RallyPoint Member SP5 Mark Kuzinski SGT Forrest Stewart SGT John " Mac " McConnell SGT Robert Hawks SGT Robert George SrA Christopher Wright Kim Bolen RN CCM ACM

Response by COL Mikel J. Burroughs made Aug 22 at 2016 11:50 AM

2016-08-22T11:50:00-04:00

LTC Stephen F. I'm not familiar with it, but now I am - thanks for sharing!

Response by SGT Robert George made Aug 23 at 2016 5:57 PM

2016-08-23T17:57:07-04:00

Hebrews 12:6 The Lord disciplines those whom he loves , and chastises every child whom he accepts ....