Streams in the Desert

Devotional For

May 4

      It Must Be Bought
      
      "On all bare heights shall be their pasture" (Isa. 49:9, RV).
      
      Toys and trinkets are easily won, but the greatest things are greatly bought. The top-most place of power is always bought with blood. You may have the pinnacles if you have enough blood to pay. That is the conquest condition of the holy heights everywhere. The story of real heroisms is the story of sacrificial blood. The chiefest values in life and character are not blown across our way by vagrant winds. Great souls have great sorrows.
      
      "Great truths are dearly bought, the common truths,
      Such as men give and take front day to day,
      Come in the common walk of easy life,
      Blown by the careless wind across our way.
      
      "Great truths are greatly won, not found by chance,
      Nor wafted on the breath of summer dream;
      But grasped in the great struggle of the soul,
      Hard buffeting with adverse wind and stream.
      
      "But in the day of conflict, fear and grief,
      When the strong hand of God, put forth in might,
      Plows up the subsoil of the stagnant heart,
      And brings the imprisoned truth seed to the light.
      
      "Wrung from the troubled spirit, in hard hours Of weakness, solitude, perchance of pain, Truth springs like harvest from the well-plowed field, And the soul feels it has not wept in vain." The capacity for knowing God enlarges as we are brought by Him into circumstances which oblige us to exercise faith; so, when difficulties beset our path let us thank God that He is taking trouble with us, and lean hard upon Him.