by J R Miller
Is it raining, little flower?
Be glad of rain!
Too much sun would wither thee
'Twill shine again.
The sky is very black, 'tis true,
But just behind it shines the blue.
Art thou weary, tender heart?
Be glad of pain;
In sorrow sweetest things will grow
As flowers in rain.
God watches, and thou wilt have sun
When clouds their perfect work have done.
May 1
In Quietness Strength
It is well that we learn the lesson of quietness. It is a secret of power. It will save us from outbursts of temper, and from saying the rash and hasty words which one hour afterward we should be sorry for having said, and which if spoken would make so much bitterness and trouble for us. It will enable us to be cheerful and patient amid the cares and vexations of life.
May 2
God Making Us
There ought to be great comfort for us in the truth that in all our life God is making us. It is not easy to make a man or a woman into the beauty God wants to see. Some of us are harder to make, too, than others. Sometimes the cost is terrific. It took a great deal of severe discipline and schooling to make an apostle of Peter, but the price paid was not too much when the result was such a magnificent man.
May 3
Closeness Of Joy And Sorrow
Our purest joys and our deepest sufferings lie very close together. To have the capacity to love to be happy is to have also the capacity to suffer. Religion makes our hearts gentler, more thoughtful, more sympathetic, and prepares us to be pained more, not less, by the frictions, the trials, the frets of life. The Christian suffers no less in sorrow, trial, and care because he is a Christian; he probably suffers more. It is no easier, in human sense, for a friend of Christ to meet disappointments, adversities, bereavements, and losses, and to endure the frictions and annoyances of life, than it is for the worldly man; it may be harder.
May 4
Bravery In Common Life
It is a great deal easier to be brave in one stern conflict which calls for heroism, in which large interest are involved, that to be brave in the thousand little struggles of the common days, for which it seems scarcely wroth while to put on the armour. It is very much less a task to be good natured under one great provocation, in the presence of others, than it is to keep sweet temper month after month of ordinary days, amid the frictions, strifes, and petty annoyances and cares of home life, or of business life.
May 5
Seeking Our Work
St. Paul "found" certain disciples. That means that he looked them up. They did not come to him to ask him to teach them. He was not a man who waited for people to send for him when they needed some work of grace. He went out and sought for people who needed spiritual help. He did not sit down and wait for opportunities of doing good; he made opportunities for himself. He looked up work, and then did it.
We should learn a lesson from him right here. There are people all about us who need our help in some way, but who will never come to us and ask us to help them. Christ’s mission was to seek and to save. He went about doing good. His command to His people is, "Go ye into all the world." There are too many people waiting for something to do for Christ. Let them go out and seek, and they will find enough to fill their hearts and hands.
May 6
Lost Opportunity
Opportunity for salvation comes to all. Every lost one was at some time on the very edge of salvation. There is a story of a prodigal who turned homeward and traversed weary miles, until he had his hand on the knocker of his father’s door, and then withdrew it and turned away again, plunging into deeper sin and shame. "Almost" is a hopeful condition, yet it is not a safe condition. A woman was lost in the mountain. All night she wandered, seeking the way home. At length she sank down and died, as the dawn was breaking. In the morning they found her but a few steps from the door of the hotel which she was struggling to reach, almost saved, yet lost! God wants us to be altogether Christians. "Almost" will not avail.
May 7
Withholding Help
We are continually passing by on the other side of human needs and sorrows. We see persons in trouble, but do not do anything to help them. We hear the cries of distress, and we could give assistance, but we do not – we pass by. In our Lord’s description of the last judgment it is remarkable that He makes the decision to turn not so much upon sins committed as on duties neglected. Those who go to the left hand are sent there because they have not done the duties of love which they ought to have done.
May 8
Living And Loving
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God … and thy neighbour." The word "love" is, in form at least, the perfect tense of "live." There certainly can be no true living which is not loving. "God is God" and we live really only when our life is the life of God in us. We are to love God; – no other response to His wonderful love for us is worthy. Then we are to love our neighbour; in no other way can we prove that we love God. Says George MacDonald: "When God comes to man, man looks round for his neighbour."
May 9
Silence Wakes Earnestness
The strangest incident recorded of Jesus is that to the city of a woman in need – "He answered her not a word." The gentle Jesus stood, seeming to be unmoved by the heart broken cries of the woman at His feet. Why was Christ thus silent? Evidently the reason for His silence was that He might draw out the woman’s faith. He was preparing her to receive in the end far richer, better things than she could have received at the beginning. Our Lord yet sometimes seems to be silent to His people when they cry unto Him. Ofttimes the silence is meant to make the suppliants more earnest, and to prepare their hearts for receiving larger blessings.
May 10
Be Kind In Trifles
Kindness is love dong little things, things that seem scarcely worth doing, and yet which mean much to those for whom they are wrought. Kindness lends a hand when another is burdened. It speaks the cheerful word when a heart is discouraged. It gives a cup of cold water when one is thirsty. It is always doing good turns to somebody. It goes about performing almost unconsciously its wayside ministries, with a touch of blessing for everybody. It scatters its small nameless favours everywhere. Until we think of it especially we do not realize how large a factor in the most useful and helpful lives in this world are kindness. Few qualities do more to make a life bright and beautiful.
May 11
Christians Should Be Bright
God wants our lives to be bright. He wants them to shine like lamps in the darkness. The world needs nothing so much as light, – not light blazing in the far off sky, but light pouring out softly, low down, close by, from human lives which have been kindled at the heart of God. The aim of the Gospel of Christ is to make human lives bright with the brightness of God’s own holiness. There is a word in one of Paul’s letters which puts this truth in the form of an exhortation. "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." The word "transformed" suggests a change from dullness to brightness.
May 12
Choosing Amusements
Christ does not frown upon pure and innocent pleasures. He went Himself, when He was on the earth, to places of enjoyment and festivity. He attended a marriage feast, and contributed to the gladness of the guests. He accepted invitations to family feasts. There is not a trace of asceticism in all the story of His life. And He would do the same if He were here now. Pleasures that are pure, innocent, and helpful, or that contribute to the joy and good of others, He would enjoy. And what He would do if He were in our place, we, as His followers, may do. But there are amusements in which we may be sure He would not indulge. A tender spiritual instinct will readily discriminate between those in which He would and those in which He would not engage. This seems a reasonable and legitimate test for us, His followers.
May 13
Quiet Workers
Many of our Lord’s earthly servants have caught His spirit, and work so quietly that they are scarcely recognized among men as workers. In their humility they do not even suppose themselves to be of any use, and mourn over their unprofitableness as Christ’s servants, and yet in heaven they are written down as among the very noblest of His ministers. They do no great things, but their lives are full of radiations of blessing. There is a quiet and unconscious influence ever going forth from them that falls like a benediction on every life that comes into their shadow.
May 14
Laying Care On God
Everything that threatens to give us anxiety is to be taken at once to God. Nothing is too great to carry to Him. Does not He bear up all worlds? Does not He rule over all the affairs of the universe? Is there any matter in our life, how great so ever it may seem to us, too hard, for Him to manage? Is any perplexity too sore for Him to resolve? Is any human despair too dark for Him to illumine with hope? Is there any tangle or confusion out of which He cannot extricate us? Or is anything to small to bring to Him? Is He not our Father, and is He not interested in whatever concerns us? There is not one of the countless things that fly like specks of dust all through our daily life, tending to vex and fret us that we may not take to God. And this is the cure which the Scriptures prescribe for care. The divine philosophy of living says: "Be anxious for nothing, but make everything known to God; in everything, by prayer and thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." Refer every disturbing thing to Him, that He may bear the burden of it.
May 15
Persevere
There is an inspired word which says: "Let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not." What is meant by "well doing"? It is doing right, obeying God’s commands, fashioning our life after the pattern revealed by Him in His Word. It is not easy to do right. It costs us many a struggle. A life of well doing implies a continual crucifying of self. Inclinations must be restrained. Desires must be curbed. The will must be yielded to God’s will. The whole life must be brought into subjection to a law which is spiritual and heavenly.
May 16
Faithful Friendship
When we take a person into our life as a friend, we do not know what it may cost us to be faithful to our trust. Misfortune may befall our friend, and he may need our help in ways that will lay a heavy burden upon us. It may be in his business or in his secular affairs that he may suffer. Timely aid may enable him to overcome his difficulties, and attain to prosperous circumstances. It is in our power to render him the assistance that he needs, without which he must succumb to failure. It will cost us personal inconvenience and trouble to do this. But he is our friend. We have taken him into our life, thus becoming partner in all his affairs. Can we withhold from him the help which he needs and which we can give, without breaking the holy covenant of friendship and failing in our sacred obligations to him?
May 17
Patience At Home
We all need patience. Without it we never really can make anything of our life. We need it in our homes. The very closeness and familiarity of the relations within our own doors make it hard at times for us to preserve perfect sweetness of spirit. There is much undiscipline as yet in most earthly families. We throw off our reserve and our carefulness, and are too apt now and them to speak or act disagreeably. We assert ourselves, and are willful and exacting. It is easy, in the frictions that too often are felt in our homes, to lose our patience and speak unadvisedly and unkindly. Such impatient words hurt gentle hearts, sometimes irreparably. But wherever else we may fail in patience, it should not be in our own homes. Only the sweetest life should have place there. We have not long to stay together, and we should be patient and gentle while we may.
May 18
Christ-Likeness
You say you want to be like Christ. You pray Him to print His own image on your heart. Here, then, is the image. It is no vague dream of perfection that we are to think of when we ask to be like Christ. The old monks thought that they were in the way to become like Christ when they went into the wilderness, away from men, to live in cold cells or on tall columns. But surely that is not the thought which "to minister" suggests. "To minister" – that is the Christ like thing. Instead of fleeing away from men, we are to live among men, to serve them, to live for them, or seek to bless them, to do good, to give our lives.
May 19
Trust For The Day
God gives us life by days, little single days. Each day has its own duties, its own needs, its own trials and temptations, its own griefs and sorrows. God always gives us strength enough for the day as He gives it, with all that He puts into it. But if we insist on dragging back tomorrow’s cares and piling them on top of today’s, the strength will not be enough for the load. God will not add strength just to humour our whims of anxiety and distrust.
May 20
Strive For Strength
Strength is the glory of manhood. Yet it is not easy to be strong, – it is easier to be weak and to drift. It is easier for the boy in school not to work hard to get his lessons, but to let them go, and then at the last depend on some other boy to help him through. It is easier, when something happens to make you irritable, just to fly into a temper and say bitter words, than it is to keep quiet and self controlled. It is easier, when you are with other young people and they are about to do something that you know to be unworthy, just to go with them, than it is to say: "I cannot do this wickedness against God." It is easier to be weak than to be strong.
May 21
Sun And Shadow
God’s way does not always lie in the sunshine; sometimes it runs into deep glooms. We are not always out of the way when we find ourselves facing obstacles and difficulties. When we cannot see where we are going we may be in the way everlasting, because God is guiding us. He leads us away many a time from the path we would have taken. Always He leads us away from whatever is wrong. God’s way is a way of holiness, a white, clean way. It is the road to heaven.
May 22
God's Withholding
We should never think first of what will give us joy or comfort, but of what will work out God’s holy will in us, and fit us for doing the service for Him which He wants us to render. Pain is ofttimes better for us than pleasure, loss than gain, sorrow than joy, disaster than deliverance. Faith should know that God’s withholdings from us, when He does not give what we ask, are richer blessings than were He to open to us all the treasure houses at whose doors we stand and knock with so great vehemence. Our unanswered prayers have just as real and as blessed answer as those which bring what we seek.
May 23
Life's Hidden Blessings
Let the young learn to miss no chance that life brings, and refuse no blessing which the commonest day presents, in whatever plainness of form. It may be only a dull, dry little seed which is held out to you, but in it is enfolded a rare, sweet flower, which some day will fill your room with fragrance, if you accept it: you cannot have the flower then unless you take the seed today.
May 24
God Never Forsakes
An Arctic explorer was asked whether during the long months of slow starvation which he and his companions had endured they suffered greatly from the pangs of hunger. He replied that these pangs were forgotten in the feeling that their friends at home had forgotten them and were not coming to rescue them. There is no suffering so bitter as the sense of abandonment, the thought that nobody cares. But however painful and hard our condition may be, however men may wrong us and injure us, Christian faith assures us that God loves us, that He has not forgotten us, that He cares.
May 25
Do Good Always
Our errand in this world is in a small way the same that Christ’s errand was. He does not now Himself, in person, go about doing good – we are to go for Him. The only hands Christ has for doing kindnesses are our hands. The only feet He has to run the errands of love are our feet. The only voice to speak cheer to the troubled is our voice.
May 26
Daily Victories
This is the mission of Christianity in the world – to help men to be victorious, to whisper love wherever there is despair, to give cheer wherever there is discouragement. It goes forth to open prisons, to unbind chains, and to bring out captives. Its symbol is not a cross only, – that is one of its symbols, telling of the price of our redemption, telling of love that dies, – but its final symbol is an open grave – open and empty. We know what that means. It tells of life, not of death; of life victorious over death. And we must not suppose that its promise is only for the final resurrection; it is for resurrection every day, every hour, over all death. It means unconquerable, unquenchable, indestructible, immortal life at every point where death seems to have won a victory.
May 27
Tell Your Experience
Each one should speak out his own message. If it be only a single word, it will yet bless the earth. If only one of the flowers that bloom in summer days in the fields and gardens had refused to bloom, hiding its little gift of beauty, the world would be poorer and less lovely. If but one of the myriad stars in the heavens had refused to shine, keeping its little beam locked in its breast, the nights would be a little darker than they are. And every human life that fails to hear it message and learn its lesson or fails to speak it out, keeping it locked in the silence of the heart, leaves this earth a little poorer. But every life, even the lowliest, that learns of God, and then speaks out its message, adds something to the world’s blessing and beauty.
May 28
Making Records
One of our poets has told us that our life is a leaf of white paper on which each of us may write his word or two – and then comes night. What are we writing on our little leaf? It should be something that will bless those who read it. It should be something fit to carry into eternity; it must be most beautiful and worthy for this. It should be something which we shall not be ashamed to meet again, for this leaf will appear in judgment, bearing our word or two, good or bad, just what we put on it; and by this we shall be judged. It is well that we do only things that are worth while; things that are right and true and pure and lovely, things that will last for ever.
May 29
Love The Sweetener
Love walks along life’s ways with gentle step. Fragrant flowers grow in its path, and the air is always sweeter when it has passed by. It is kindly, thoughtful, pitiful, and compassionate. It has patience with human faults, and looks with an eye of tender love on those who have fallen. It is tolerant of others who, through weakness, err or turn aside. It is forbearing and long suffering. It meekly endures injury and wrong, giving sweet love for the hurts of unkindness. It sees eagerly and joyfully the good things in others, and has a wide cloak of charity for their failings and sins. It is merciful, forgiving not seven times only, but seventy times seven. Conscious of its own fault and evil, it is lenient toward the blemishes it sees in others.
May 30
The True Evangel
Love is the essential thing in preparing one for being a helper of others. It is not enough for the preacher to declare to all men that God loves them, – the preacher must love them too if he would make them believe in the divine love for them. The true evangel is the love of God interpreted in a human life. No other will win men’s confidence and faith. We must show the tenderness of God in our tenderness. We must reveal the compassion of God in our compassion. God so love that He gave; – we must so love as to give.
May 31
Sorrow A Revealer
One tells of a company of tourists on the Alps who were overtaken by night; and after groping in the deep darkness for a time were compelled to settle down and wait until morning. A thunderstorm arose during the darkness, and a vivid lightning flash showed them that they had stopped on the very edge of a precipice. Another step forward and they would have fallen to their death. The lightning flashes of sorrow ofttimes reveal to Christian people the peril in which they are living, and lead them to turn to safer paths. Many a redeemed one in glory will look back to the time of a great grief as the time of seeing god which led to penitence and faith.
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