Streams in the Desert

Devotional For

January 3

      The Lord is My Strength
      
      "The Lord hath sent strength for thee" (Ps. 68:28, PBV).
      
      The Lord imparts unto us that primary strength of character which makes everything in life work with intensity and decision. We are "strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man." And the strength is continuous; reserves of power come to us which we cannot exhaust.
      
      "As thy days, so shall thy strength be"-strength of will, strength of affection, strength of judgment, strength of ideals and achievement.
      
      "The Lord is my strength" to go on. He gives us power to tread the dead level, to walk the long lane that seems never to have a turning, to go through those long reaches of life which afford no pleasant surprise, and which depress the spirits in the sameness of a terrible drudgery.
      
      "The Lord is my strength" to go up. He is to me the power by which I can climb the Hill Difficulty and not be afraid.
      
      "The Lord is my strength" to go down. It is when we leave the bracing heights, where the wind and the sun have been about us, and when we begin to come down the hill into closer and more sultry spheres, that the heart is apt to grow faint.
      
      I heard a man say the other day concerning his growing physical frailty, "It is the coming down that tires me!"
      
      "The Lord is my strength" to sit still. And how difficult is the attainment! Do we not often say to one another, in seasons when we are compelled to be quiet, "If only I could do something!"
      
      When the child is ill, and the mother stands by in comparative impotence, how severe is the test! But to do nothing, just to sit still and wait, requires tremendous strength. "The Lord is my strength!" "Our sufficiency is of God." The Silver Lining A Door Opened in Heaven "A door opened in heaven" (Rev. 4:1).
      
      You must remember that John was in the Isle of Patmos, a lone, rocky, inhospitable prison, for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus. And yet to him, under such circumstances, separated from all the loved ones of Ephesus; debarred from the worship of the Church; condemned to the companionship of uncongenial fellow-captives, were vouchsafed these visions. For him, also a door was opened.
      
      We are reminded of Jacob, exiled from his father's house, who laid himself down in a desert place to sleep, and in his dreams beheld a ladder which united Heaven with earth, and at the top stood God.
      
      Not to these only, but to many more, doors have been opened into Heaven, when, so far as the world was concerned, it seemed as though their circumstances were altogether unlikely for such revelations.
      
      To prisoners and captives; to constant sufferers, bound by iron chains of pain to sick couches; to lonely pilgrims and wanderers; to women detained from the Lord's house by the demands of home, how often has the door been opened to Heaven.
      
      But there are conditions. You must know what it is to be in the Spirit; you must be pure in heart and obedient in faith; you must be willing to count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ; then when God is all in all to us, when we live, move and have our being in His favor, to us also will the door be opened. --Daily Devotional Commentary
      
      "God hath His mountains bleak and bare, Where He doth bid us rest awhile; Crags where we breathe a purer air, Lone peaks that catch the day's first smile.
      
      "God hath His deserts broad and brown--A solitude--a sea of sand, Where He doth let heaven's curtain down, Unknit by His Almighty hand." There We Saw the Giants