Streams in the Desert April 9 Daily Devotional

All these things are against me (Gen. 42.36).
All things work together for good to them that love God (Rom. 8:28).
Many people are wanting power. Now how is power produced? The other day we passed the great works where the trolley engines are
supplied with electricity. We heard the hum and roar of the
countless wheels, and we asked our friend, "How do they make the power?"

"Why," he said, "just by the revolution of those wheels and the
friction they produce. The rubbing creates the electric current"
And so, when God wants to bring more power into your life, He
brings more pressure. He is generating spiritual force by hard
rubbing. Some do not like it and try to run away from the pressure, instead of getting the power and using it to rise above the painful causes.
Opposition is essential to a true equilibrium of forces. The
centripetal and centrifugal forces acting in opposition to each
other keep our planet in her orbit. The one propelling, and the
other repelling, so act and re-act that instead of sweeping off
into space in a pathway of desolation, she pursues her even orbit around her solar center.
So God guides our lives. It is not enough to have an impelling
force-we need just as much a repelling force, and so He holds us
back by the testing ordeals of fife, by the pressure of temptation and trial, by the things that seem against us, but really are
furthering our way and establishing our goings.
Let us thank Him for both, let us take the weights as well as the wings, and thus divinely impelled, let us press on with faith and
patience in our high and heavenly calling. --A. B. Simpson.
In a factory building there are wheels and gearings,
There are cranks and pulleys, beltings tight or slack-
Some are whirling swiftly, some are turning slowly,
Some are thrusting forward, some are pulling back;
Some are smooth and silent, some are rough and noisy, Pounding, rattling, clanking, moving with a jerk;
In a wild confusion in a seeming chaos,
Lifting, pushing, driving-but they do their work.
From the mightiest lever to the tiniest pinion,
All things move together for the purpose planned; And behind the working is a mind controlling,
And a force directing, and a guiding hand.
So all things are working for the Lord's beloved; Some things might be hurtful if alone they stood;
Some might seem to hinder; some might draw us backward;
But they work together, and they work for good, All the thwarted longings, all the stern denials, All the contradictions, hard to understand.
And the force that holds them, speeds them and retards them,
Stops and starts and guides them-is our Father's hand. --Annie Johnson Flint.