From Streams in the Desert, January 16th
A furious squall came up. (Mark 4:37)
Some of life's storms- a great sorrow, a bitter disappointment, a crushing defeat- suddenly come upon us. Others may come slowly, appearing on the uneven edge of the horizon no larger than a person's hand. But trouble that seems so insignificant spreads until it covers the sky and overwhelms us.
Yet it is in the storms that God equips us for service. When God wants an oak tree, He plants it where the storms will shake it and the rains will beat down upon it. It is in the midnight battle with the elements that the oak develops its rugged fiber and becomes the king of the forest.
When God wants to make a person He puts Him into some storm. The history of humankind has always been rough and rugged. No one is complete until he has been out into the surge of the storm and has found the glorious fulfillment of the prayer "O God, take me, break me, make me."
The beauties of nature come after the storm. The rugged beauty of the mountain is born in a storm, and the heroes of life are the storm-swept and battle-scarred.
You have been in the storms and swept by the raging winds. Have they left you broken, weary, and beaten in the valley or have they lifted you to the sunlit summits of a richer, deeper, more abiding manhood or womanhood? Have they left you with more sympathy for the storm-swept and the battle-scarred?
A child of God- beloved, holy, righteous, blameless, healed, forgiven, brand new, sheep, salt, light, a branch, temple of God, reconciled, a saint, God's workmanship, hidden with Christ in God, an expression of the life of Christ because He is my life, a partaker, a living stone- crucified with Christ, I no longer live but Christ lives IN ME!
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