Streams in the Desert December 22 Daily Devotional

Lo, a horror of great darkness fell upon him (Gen. 15:12).
The sun at last went down, and the swift, eastern night cast Its
heavy veil over the scene. Worn out with the mental conflict the watchings, and the exertions of the day, Abraham fell into a deep sleep, and in that sleep his soul was oppressed with a dense and dreadful darkness, such as almost stifled him, and lay like a
nightmare upon his heart Do you understand something of the horror of that darkness? When some terrible sorrow which seems so hard to reconcile with perfect love, crushes down upon the soul, wringing
from it all its peaceful rest in the pitifulness of God, and
launching it on a sea unlit by a ray of hope; when unkindness, and cruelty maltreat the trusting heart, till it begins to doubt
whether there be a God overhead who can see and still permit - these know something of the "horror of great darkness." It is thus that
human life is made up; brightness and gloom; shadow and sun; long
tracks of cloud, succeeded by brilliant glints of light, and amid
all Divine justice is working out its own schemes, affecting others equally with the individual soul which seems the subject of special discipline. O ye who are filled with the horror of great darkness
because of God's dealings with mankind, learn to trust that
infallible wisdom, which is co-assessor with immutable justice; and know that He who passed through the horror of the darkness of
Calvary, with the cry of forsakenness, is ready to bear you company through the valley of the shadow of death till you see the sun
shining upon its farther side. Let us, by our Forerunner, send
forward our anchor. Hope, within the veil that parts us from the
unseen; where it will grapple in ground and will not yield, but hold until the day dawns, and we follow it into the haven
guaranteed to us by God's immutable counsel. --F. B. Meyer.
The disciples thought that that angry sea separated them from
Jesus. Nay, some of them thought worse than that; they thought that the trouble that had come upon them was a sign that Jesus had

forgotten all about them, and did not care for them. Oh, dear friend, that is when troubles have a sting, when the devil
whispers, "God has forgotten you; God has forsaken you"; when your
unbelieving heart cries as Gideon cried, "If the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us?" The evil has come upon you to bring the Lord nearer to you. The evil has not come upon you to separate you from Jesus, but to make you cling to Him more
faithfully, more tenaciously, more simply. --F. S. Webster, M. A.
Never should we so abandon ourselves to God as when He seems to
have abandoned us. Let us enjoy light and consolation when it is His pleasure to give it to us, but let us not attach ourselves to
His gifts, but to Himself; and when He plunges us into the night of pure faith, let us still press on through the agonizing darkness.
Oh, for faith that brings the triumph When defeat seems strangely near! Oh, for faith that brings the triumph Into victory's ringing cheer-
Faith triumphant; knowing not defeat or fear. --Herbert Booth.