May 24 / Springs in the Valley by L.B. Cowman

May 24

And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. (Mark 6:32)

If you have a desert place in your heart to which you must sometimes go, you should depart to it in a ship privately. No man should make a thoroughfare of his desert. Keep your grief for the private ship. Never go into company with an abstracted mind; that is to display your desert.

You have sometimes refrained from God’s table of communion because your thoughts were away. You did well. Man’s table of communion has the same need. If you are bidden to a feast when you are troubled in your mind, try first whether you can carry your burden privately away. If you can, then leave the desert behind you; “anoint thine head, and wash thy face; that thou appear not unto men to fast.” But if you cannot, if there is no ship that can take away your burden in secret, then come not yet to the feast. Journey not while the cloud is resting over the tabernacle. Tarry under the cloud. Watch one hour in the garden. Bury thy sorrow in the silence. Let thy heart be reconciled to the Father, and then come to the world and offer thy gift.

Hide your thorn in the rose. Bury your sigh in the song. Keep your cross, if you will, but keep it hidden away under a wreath of flowers. Keep a singing heart!

O Thou that hast hid Thy thorn beneath a rose, steer the ship in which I conceal my burden! Thou hast gone down to the feast of Cana from the fast in the wilderness; where hast Thou hid the print of the nails? In love. Steer me to that burying ground! Let the ship on its way to my desert touch for an hour at the desert of my brother! Let me feel the fellowship of grief, the community of sorrow, the kindredness of pain! Let me hear the voices from other wildernesses, the sighs from other souls, the groans from other graves! And, when I come to my own landing-place and put down my hand to lift up my burden, I shall meet a wondrous surprise. It will be there, but it will be there half-sized. Its heaviness will be gone, its impossibility will have vanished. I shall lift it easily; I shall carry it lightly; I shall bury it swiftly. I shall be ready for Cana in an hour, ready for Calvary in a few minutes. I shall go back to enter into the struggle of the multitude; and the multitude will say, “There is no desert with him!”

Give others the sunshine, Tell Jesus the rest.

Leaves for Quiet Hours

Lie down and sleep,
Leave it with God to keep
This sorrow which is part
Now of thy heart.

When thou dost wake
If still ‘tis thine to take,
Utter no wild complaint,
Work waits thy hand.
 If thou shouldst faint God understands.

Cowman, L. B. E.. Springs in the Valley (pp. 158-160). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.