INTO THE PATIENT WAITING...

"They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb . . . and they loved not their lives unto the death" (Rev. 12:11). When James and John came to Christ with their mother, asking Him to give them the best place in the kingdom, He did not refuse their request, but told them it would be given to them if they could do His work, drink His cup, and be baptized with His baptism. Do we want the competition? The greatest things are always hedged about by the hardest things, and we, too, shall find mountains and forests and chariots of iron. Hardship is the price of coronation. Triumphal arches are not woven out of rose blossoms and silken cords, but of hard blows and bloody scars. The very hardships that you are enduring in your life today are given by the Master for the explicit purpose of enabling you to win your crown. Do not wait for some ideal situation, some romantic difficulty, some far-away emergency; but rise to meet the actual conditions which the Providence

Ever read Streams in the Desert? If you haven't, you'll be challenged and drawn closer to Christ by the devotions that this woman has put together over years of hardship and suffering. April 29th's devotional was a balm to my weary heart when I read it because my faith has been tested so much the past 8 weeks. My faith in man, the church and "good things" has failed. Faith in those items will not last and will eventually crumble. However, faith in God will never crumble and my faith in Jesus Christ has only gotten stronger. And this post - my friend - is why. Streams in the Desert: April 29th Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. James 5:17 Thank God for that! He got under a juniper tree, as you and I have often done; he complained and murmured, as we have often done; was unbelieving, as we have often been. But that was not the case whe