Streams in the Desert March 10 Daily Devotional

The just shall live by faith (Heb. 10:38).
Seemings and feelings are often substituted for faith. Pleasurable emotions and deep satisfying experiences are part of the Christian
fife, but they are not al of it Trials, conflicts, battles and
testings he along the way, and are not to be counted as
misfortunes, but rather as part of our necessary discipline.
In all these varying experiences we are to reckon on Christ as
dwelling in the heart regardless of our feelings if we are walking obediently before Him. Here is where many get into trouble; they try to walk by feeling rather than faith.
One of the saints tells us that it seemed as though God had
withdrawn Himself from her. His mercy seemed dean gone. For six
weeks her desolation lasted, and then the Heavenly Lover seemed to say:
"Catherine, thou hast looked for Me without in the world of sense, but all the while I have been within waiting for thee; meet Me in
the inner chamber of thy spirit for I am there. "
Distinguish between the fact of God's presence, and the emotion of the fact It is a happy thing when the soul seems desolate and
deserted, if our faith can say, "I see Thee not I feel Thee not but

Thou art certainly and graciously here, where I am as I am." Say it again and again: "Thou are here: though the bush does not seem to bum with fire, it does bum. I win take the shoes from off my feet
for the place on which I stand is holy ground."
--London Christian.
Believe God's word and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your Rock is Christ, and it is not the Rock which ebbs and flows, but your sea. --Samuel Rutherford.
Keep your eye steadily fixed on the infinite grandeur of Christ
finished work and righteousness. Look to Jesus and believe, look to Jesus and five! Nay, more; as you look to him, hoist your sails and
buffet manfully the sea of life. Do not remain in the haven of distrust, or sleeping on your shadows in inactive repose, or
suffering your frames and feelings to pitch and toss on one another like vessels idly moored in a harbor. The religious fife is not a
brooding over emotions, grazing the keel of faith in the shallows,
of dragging the anchor of hope through the oozy tide mud as if
afraid of encountering the healthy breeze. Away! With your canvas spread to the gale, trusting in Him, who rules the raging of the
waters. The safety of the tinted bird is to be on the wing. If its haunt be near the ground-if it fly low-it exposes itself to the
fowler's net or snare. If we remain grovelling on the low ground of feeling and emotion, we shall find ourselves entangled in a
thousand meshes of doubt and despondency, temptation and unbelief. "But surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of THAT WHICH
HATH A WING" (marginal reading Prov. 1:17). Hope thou in God.--J.
R. Macduff.
When I cannot enjoy the faith of assurance, I live by the faith of adherence. --Matthew Henry.