Streams in the Desert

Devotional For

August 23

      Earth's Broken Things
      
      "Fear not, thou worm Jacob...I will make thee a threshing instrument with teeth" (Isa. 41:14-15).
      
      Could any two things be in greater contrast than a worm and an instrument with teeth? The worm is delicate, bruised by a stone, crushed beneath the passing wheel; an instrument with teeth can break and not be broken; it can grave its mark upon the rock. And the mighty God can convert the one into the other. He can take a man or a nation, who has all the impotence of the worm, and by the invigoration of His own Spirit, He can endow with strength by which a noble mark is left upon the history of the time.
      
      And so the "worm" may take heart. The mighty God can make us stronger than our circumstances. He can bend them all to our good. In God's strength we can make them all pay tribute to our souls. We can even take hold of a black disappointment, break it open, and extract some jewel of grace. When God gives us wills like iron, we can drive through difficulties as the iron share cuts through the toughest soil. "I will make thee," and shall He not do it? --Dr. Jowett
      
      Christ is building His kingdom with earth's broken things. Men want only the strong, the successful, the victorious, the unbroken, in building their kingdoms; but God is the God of the unsuccessful, of those who have failed. Heaven is filling with earth's broken lives, and there is no bruised reed that Christ cannot take and restore to glorious blessedness and beauty. He can take the life crushed by pain or sorrow and make it into a harp whose music shall be all praise. He can lift earth's saddest failure up to heaven's glory. --J. R. Miller
      
      "Follow Me, and I will make you"
      Make you speak My words with power,
      Make you channels of My mercy,
      Make you helpful every hour.
      
      "Follow Me, and I will make you"
      Make you what you cannot be
      Make you loving, trustful, godly,
      Make you even like to Me.
      --L. S. P.