Streams in the Desert

Devotional For

March 22

      Trouble is a Messenger
      
      "My Father is the husbandman" (John 15:1).
      
      It is comforting to think of trouble, in whatever form it may come to, us, as a heavenly messenger, bringing us something from God. In its earthly aspect it may seem hurtful, even destructive; but in its spiritual out-working it yields blessing. Many of the richest blessings which have come down to us from the past are the fruit of sorrow or pain. We should never forget that redemption, the world's greatest blessing, is the fruit of the world's greatest sorrow. In every time of sharp pruning, when the knife is deep and the pain is sore, it is an unspeakable comfort to read, "My Father is the husbandman."
      
      Doctor Vincent tells of being in a great hothouse where luscious clusters of grapes were hanging on every side. The owner said, "When my new gardener came, he said he would have nothing to do with these vines unless he could cut them clean down to the stalk; and he did, and we had no grapes for two years, but this is the result."
      
      There is rich suggestiveness in this interpretation of the pruning process, as we apply it to the Christian life. Pruning seems to be destroying the vine, the gardener appears to be cutting it all away; but he looks on into the future and knows that the final outcome will be the enrichment of its life and greater abundance of fruit.
      
      There are blessings we can never have unless we are ready to pay the price of pain. There is no way to reach them save through suffering. --Dr. Miller.
      
      "I walked a mile with Pleasure,
      She chattered all the way;
      But left me none the wiser
      For all she had to say.
      
      "I walked a mile with Sorrow,
      And ne'er a word said she;
      But, oh, the things I learned from her
      When sorrow walked with me."