Apr 17, 2026 – Will
I like this photo of Carrie walking up this tree-lined path to one of the buildings at one of the highest points in Montepulciano, Italy. It reminds of what a counselor told me one time about being safe as long as we are under God’s umbrella….
Utmost – John 21:7 – “Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher’s coat unto him,… and did cast himself into the sea.” Chambers asks, “Have you ever had a crisis in which you deliberately and emphatically and recklessly abandoned everything? It is a crisis of will. You may come up to it many times externally, but it amounts to nothing. The real deep crisis of abandonment is reaching internally, not externally…. It is a transaction of will, not of emotion; the emotion is simply the gilt edge of the transaction. If you allow emotion first, you will never make the transaction.”
Simpson – “He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city” (Prov. Xvi. 32). Simpson also focuses on the will, writing, “Temperance is true self-government. It involves the grace of self-denial and the spirit of a sound mind. It is that poise of spirit that holds us quiet, self-possessed, recollected, deliberate, and subject ever to the voice of God and the conviction of duty in every step we take. Many persons have not that poise and recollected spirit. They are drifting at the impulse of their own impressions, moods, the influence of others, or the circumstances around them. No desire should ever control us. No purpose, however right, should have such mastery over us that we are not perfectly free…. That thing that we began to do because it was God’s will, we may cling to and persist in ultimately, because it is our will. Lord, give us the spirit ever controlled by Thy Spirit and will, and the eye that looks to Thee every moment as the eyes of a servant to the hands of her mistress.”
Power – Proverbs 14:21 – “He who despises his neighbor sins [against God, his fellowman, and himself], but happy (blessed and fortunate) is he who is kind and merciful to the poor.” Joyce points out that “Helping the poor and those who are less fortunate than we are is not only a nice thing to do, but according to the Bible, it is our responsibility…. God gives us hearts of compassion, but when needs arise we can’t close our hearts – we need to open our hearts and our hands wide to help…. When we give… the Bible says that we lend to the Lord…. God will always return many times over. Not only will He meet our needs, but our joy will increase as a result of giving in love.”
Streams – I have read Streams in the Desert entries online at times, but when I tried at the beginning of the trip, the site I found blocked me so I gave up – too easily. I just now googled and found a different site and can share some of Cowman’s thoughts on this day: “If men would but believe that they are in process of creation, and consent to be made — let the Maker handle them as the potter the clay, yielding themselves in resplendent motion and submissive, hopeful action with the turning of His wheel — they would ere long find themselves able to welcome every pressure of that hand on them, even when it was felt in pain; and sometime not only to believe but to recognize the Divine end in view, the bringing of a son unto glory.”
