September 2 “Unto you it is given… to suffer.” (Phil. 1:29.) GOD keeps a costly school. Many of its lessons are spelled out through tears. Richard Baxter said, “O God, I thank Thee for a bodily discipline of eight and fifty years”; and he is not the only man whoRead More …

September 1 “I will lay thy stones with fair colors.” (Isa. 54:11.) THE stones from the wall said, “We come from the mountains far away, from the sides of the craggy hills. Fire and water have worked on us for ages, but made us only crags. Human hands have madeRead More …

August 31 “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” (John 20:29.) HOW strong is the snare of the things that are seen, and how necessary for God to keep us in the things that are unseen! If Peter is to walk on the water he mustRead More …

August 30 “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.” (Psalm 107:23, 24.) HE is but an apprentice and no master in the art, who has not learned that everyRead More …

August 29 “And he went out carrying his own cross.” (John 19:17.) THERE is a poem called “The Changed Cross.” It represents a weary one who thought that her cross was surely heavier than those of others whom she saw about her, and she wished that she might choose anotherRead More …

August 28 “There he proved them.” (Exod. 15:25.) I STOOD once in the test room of a great steel mill. All around me were little partitions and compartments. Steel had been tested to the limit, and marked with figures that showed its breaking point. Some pieces had been twisted untilRead More …

August 27 “And he took him aside from the multitude.” (Mark 7:33.) PAUL not only stood the tests in Christian activity, but in the solitude of captivity. You may stand the strain of the most intense labor, coupled with severe suffering, and yet break down utterly when laid aside fromRead More …

August 26 “It is not in me.” (Job 28:14.) I REMEMBER a summer in which I said, “It is the ocean I need,” and I went to the ocean; but it seemed to say, “It is not in me!” The ocean did not do for me what I thought itRead More …

August 25 “Shut up to faith.” (Gal. 3:23.) GOD, in olden time suffered man to be kept in ward by the law that he might learn the more excellent way of faith. For by the law he would see God’s holy standard and by the law he would see hisRead More …

August 24 “I have all, and abound.” (Phil. 4:18.) IN one of my garden books there is a chapter with a very interesting heading, “Flowers that Grow in the Gloom.” It deals with those patches in a garden which never catch the sunlight. And my guide tells me the sortRead More …