HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div

“The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.” Isaiah 35:1

The desert blossoms, when Christ is in it.

There is a desert of separation from outward means of grace. I may be deprived of my Christian surroundings. I may have to travel far from the homeland and the sound of church bells. But Jesus is the same under every sky. He continues to dwell with me by faith. And then, the wilderness becomes a paradise.

There is a desert of trial.

• Perhaps I lose my earthly substance.
• Perhaps I lose my health.
• Perhaps I lose my friend, half of my own soul.

How desolating the affliction is! How orphaned I am! But Jesus blesses me. He makes the fruits of new grace to spring in the soil of my heart. He makes the morning star shine in the darkness of my night.

There is a desert of apparent disaster to the cause of God. The Church has its periods of adversity when all things seem against it. It loses the favour of the world. It walks through the sleet and hail or the hurricane. But Jesus teaches it to be more serious then, more patient, more devout, stronger in faith, richer in feeling, purer in aim.

There is a desert of death. To go out from the world which I know, into the world which is mysterious and strange — how I shrink from it! But Jesus shows me, by His written Word and His Holy Spirit and His own experience, that death is the road to glory and the path to fruitfulness. The solitary place shall be glad.