May 14 / Springs in the Valley by L. B. Cowman

May 14

Study to be quiet. (1 Thess. 4:11)

Beloved! this is our spirit’s deepest need. It is thus that we can learn to know God. It is thus that we receive spiritual refreshment and nutriment. It is thus that we are nourished and fed. It is thus that we receive the Living Bread. It is thus that our very bodies are healed, and our spirits drink in the life of our risen Lord, and we go forth to life’s conflicts and duties like the flower that has drunk in, through the shades of the night, the cool and crystal drops of dew. But the dew never falls on a stormy night, so the dews of His Grace never come to the restless soul.

We cannot go through life strong and fresh on constant express trains with ten minutes for lunch: we must have quiet hours, secret places of the Most High, times of waiting upon the Lord, when we renew our strength and learn to mount up on wings as eagles, and then come back to run and not be weary, and to walk and not faint.

The best thing about this stillness is, that it gives God a chance to work. “He that is entered into His rest hath ceased from his own works, even as God did from His”; and when we cease from our thoughts, God’s thoughts come into us; when we get still from our restless activity, “God worketh in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure,” and we have but to work it out. Beloved! let us take His stillness!
- A. B. SIMPSON

Jesus, Deliverer, come Thou to me;
Soothe Thou my voyaging, Over life’s sea!

Cowman, L. B. E.. Springs in the Valley (p. 148). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.