Streams in the Desert

Devotional For

October 28

      The Father's Hand
      
      "Your heavenly Father knoweth" (Matt. 6:32).
      
      A visitor at a school for the deaf and dumb was writing questions on the blackboard for the children. By and by he wrote this sentence: "Why has God made me to hear and speak, and made you deaf and dumb?"
      
      The awful sentence fell upon the little ones like a fierce blow in the face. They sat palsied before that dreadful "Why?" And then a little girl arose.
      
      Her lip was trembling. Her eyes were swimming with tears. Straight to the board she walked, and, picking up the crayon, wrote with firm hand these precious words: "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight!" What a reply! It reaches up and lays hold of an eternal truth upon which the maturest believer as well as the youngest child of God may alike securely rest--the truth that God is your Father.
      
      Do you mean that? Do you really and fully believe that? When you do, then your dove of faith will no longer wander in weary unrest, but will settle down forever in its eternal resting place of peace. "Your Father!"
      
      I can still believe that a day comes for all of us, however far off it may be, when we shall understand; when these tragedies, that now blacken and darken the very air of heaven for us, will sink into their places in a scheme so august, so magnificent, so joyful, that we shall laugh for wonder and delight. --Arthur Christopher Bacon
      
      No chance hath brought this ill to me;
      'Tis God's own hand, so let it be,
      He seeth what I cannot see.
      There is a need-be for each pain,
      And He one day will make it plain
      That earthly loss is heavenly gain.
      Like as a piece of tapestry
      Viewed from the back appears to be
      Naught but threads tangled hopelessly;
      But in the front a picture f air
      Rewards the worker for his care,
      Proving his skill and patience rare.
      Thou art the Workman, I the frame.
      Lord, for the glory of Thy Name,
      Perfect Thine image on the same.
      --Selected