• “I entreat you, give no place to despondency. This is a dangerous temptation–a refined, not a gross temptation of the adversary. Melancholy contracts and withers the heart, and renders it unfit to receive the impressions of grace. It magnifies and gives a false colouring to objects, and thus renders your burdens too heavy to bear. God’s designs regarding you, and His methods of bringing about these designs, are infinitely wise.” – Madame Guyon

Run With Patience – Streams in the Desert 10/30

“Let us run with patience” (Heb. 12:1).
O run with patience is a very difficult thing. Running is apt to suggest the absence of patience, the eagerness to reach the goal. We commonly associate patience with lying down. We think of it as the angel that guards the couch of the invalid. Yet, I do not think the invalid’s patience the hardest to achieve.
There is a patience which I believe to be harder–the patience that can run. To lie down in the time of grief, to be quiet under the stroke of adverse fortune, implies a great strength; but I know of something that implies a strength greater still: It is the power to work under a stroke; to have a great weight at your heart and still to run; to have a deep anguish in your spirit and still perform the daily task. It is a Christlike thing!
Many of us would nurse our grief without crying if we were allowed to nurse it. The hard thing is that most of us are called to exercise our patience, not in bed, but in the street. We are called to bury our sorrows, not in lethargic quiescence, but in active service–in the exchange, in the workshop, in the hour of social intercourse, in the contribution to another’s joy. There is no burial of sorrow so difficult as that; it is the
“running with patience.”
This was Thy patience, O Son of man! It was at once a waiting and a running–a waiting for the goal, and a doing of the lesser work meantime. I see Thee at Cana turning the water into wine lest the marriage feast should be clouded. I see Thee in the desert feeding a multitude with bread just to relieve a temporary want. All, all the time, Thou wert bearing a mighty grief, unshared, unspoken. Men ask for a rainbow in the cloud; but I would ask more from Thee. I would be, in my cloud, myself a rainbow–a minister to others’ joy. My patience will be perfect when it can work in the vineyard. –George Matheson
“When all our hopes are gone,
‘Tis well our hands must keep toiling on
For others’ sake:
For strength to bear is found in duty done;
And he is best indeed who learns to make
The joy of others cure his own heartache.”

Share to Google Plus

1 Responses to Run With Patience - Streams in the Desert 10/30

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

  • “Men think lightly of sin; not only sinners, but the saints do not view it in its proper light. Sin is not a light thing in the sight of God. The Church of God is asleep.” – Mary Winslow

Copyrighted works are the property of the copyright holders. All works are shown free of charge for educational purposes only in accordance with fair use guidelines. If we have inadvertently included a copyrighted work that the copyright holder does not wish to be displayed, we will remove it within 48 hours upon notification by the owner or the owner’s legal representative.

Verse of the Day

And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. — 1 John 4:16 (NKJV)

Stay Connected

Recent Comments

    No recent comment found.

Return to Homepage