May 20th
"Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?" John 18:11
God is a thousand times more meticulous with us than even an artist is with his canvas. Using many brush strokes of sorrow, and circumstances of various colors, He paints us into the highest and best image His visualizes, if we will only receive His bitter gifts of myrrh in the right spirit.
Yet when our cup of sorrows is tkaen away the lessons in it are suppressed or go unheeded, we do more damage to our soul than could ever be repaired. No human heart can imagine the incomparable love God expresses in His gift of myrrh. However, the great gift that our soul should receive is allowed to pass by us because of our sleepy indifference, and ultimately nothing comes of it.
Then, in our barrenness we come and complain, saying, "O Lord, I feel so dry, and there is so much darkness within me!" My advice to you, dear child, is to open your heart to the pain and suffering, and it will accomplish more good than being full of emotion and sincerity. Tauler
The cry of man's anguish went up to God,
"Lord, take away pain;
The shadow that darkens the world You have made,
The close, choking chain
That strangles the heart, the burden that weighs
On the wings that would soar,
Lord, Take away pain from the world You have made,
That it love You the more."
Then answered the Lord to the cry of His world:
"Shall I take away pain,
And with it the power of the soul to endure,
Made strong by the stain?
Shall I take away pity, that knits heart to heart
And sacrifice high?
Will you lose all your heroes that lift from the fire
Wisdom toward the sky?
Shall I take away love that redeems with a price
And smiles at the loss?
Can you spare from your lives that would climb unto Me
The Christ on His cross?"
From Streams In The Dessert by L.B. Cowman Edited by Jim Reiman
