9. Devotional: It's Raining Blessing

It's Raining Blessing

by James H. McConkey

For God hath made me fruitful in the land of my affliction. (Genesis 41:52) 

    The summer showers are falling. The poet stands by the window watching them. They are beating and buffeting the earth with their fierce downpour. But the poet sees in his imaginings more than the showers which are falling before his eyes. He sees myriads of lovely flowers which shall be soon breaking forth from the watered earth, filling it with matchless beauty and fragrance. And so he sings:  

“It isn’t raining rain for me, it’s raining daffodils;  

In every dimpling drop I see wild flowers upon the hills.  

A cloud of gray engulfs the day, and overwhelms the town;  

It isn’t raining rain for me: it’s raining roses down.”  

    Perchance some one of God’s chastened children is even now saying, "O God, it is raining hard for me tonight. Testings are raining upon me which seem beyond my power to endure. Disappointments are raining fast, to the utter defeat of all my chosen plans. Bereavements are raining into my life which are making my shrinking heart quiver in its intensity of suffering. The rain of affliction is surely beating down upon my soul these days.”  

    Withal, friend, you are mistaken. It isn’t raining rain for you. It’s raining blessing. For, if you will but believe your Father’s Word, under that beating rain are springing up spiritual flowers of such fragrance and beauty as never before grew in that stormless, unchastened life of yours. You indeed see the rain. But do you see also the flowers?
    You are pained by the testings. But God sees the sweet flower of faith which is upspringing in your life under those very trials. You shrink from the suffering. But God sees the tender compassion for other sufferers which is finding birth in your soul. Your heart winces under the sore bereavement. But God sees the deepening and enriching which that sorrow has brought to you. It isn’t raining afflictions for you. It is raining tenderness, love, compassion, patience, and a thousand other flowers and fruits of the blessed Spirit, which are bringing into your life such a spiritual enrichment as all the fullness of worldly prosperity and ease was never able to beget in your innermost soul.

28. Devotional: Faint Not!

Faint Not!

by James H. McConkey

    How great is the temptation at this point! How the soul sinks, the heart grows sick, and the faith staggers under the keen trials and testings which come into our lives in times of special bereavement and suffering. "I cannot bear up any longer; I am fainting under this providence. What shall I do? God tells me not to faint. But what can one do when he is fainting?" What do you do when you are about to faint physically? You cannot do anything. You cease from your own doing. In your faintness, you fall upon the shoulder of some strong loved one. You lean hard. You rest. You lie still and trust, until your fainting soul comes back to its own. It is so when we are tempted to faint under affliction. God's message to us is not "Be strong, and of good courage," for he knows our strength and courage have fled away. But it is that sweet word: "Be still, and know that I am God." Hudson Taylor was so feeble in the closing months of his life, that he wrote a dear friend, "I am so weak I cannot work; I cannot read my Bible; I cannot even pray. I can only lie still in God's arms like a little child, and trust." This wondrous man of God with all his spiritual power came to a place of physical suffering and weakness where he could only lie still and trust. And that is all God asks of you. His dear child, when you grow faint in the fierce fires of affliction. Do not try to be strong. Just be still, and know that He is God and will sustain you, and bring you through.