"Lord, carest Thou not that we perish?"

"He is a refuge in desperate hours." Psalm 9:9

A well-known business man would drop into our office every few days. His visits were ever times of spiritual refreshing. His face was always wreathed in smiles. He had an elastic tread. He radiated victory. A few minutes in his presence and one felt a lifting tides of God, for victory acts as a contagion. The old prophets knew this secret when they wrote of the carpenter encouraging the goldsmith, and the goldsmith encouraging those that beat out the tongs, etc.

Recently this same man shuffled into our office, sank down in a chair, buried his face between his hands, and burst into tears. What had happened to this child of God? He had fainted in the day of adversity. He experienced a great calamity which swept away his home, his business, his money. Then he began to worry, and, in consequence, he lost his health and is now a physical wreak. Here was Satan's opportunity, and he was not slow to avail himself of it. He came with the insidious question, "How are you going to face the world!" He led this once triumphant Christian to the very edge of the precipice, and told him to cast himself down. Everything was dark, pitch dark.

The Father cares when He sees His children in the teeth of a blinding storm, but He knows that faith grows in the tempest. He will hold our hands bidding us not to try to see the next step we are to take. He who knows the paths of a hundred million stars, knows the way through the whirlwind and the storm, and his promised, "I will never, never let go your hand!"

There is unquestionably a grave danger of many becoming spiritually paralyzed by depression. the forces of darkness are so imminent, the magnitude of the crisis is so great that many are being tempted to cry out with the disciples, "Lord, carest Thou not that we perish?" Yet He who may appear to be "asleep upon a pillow" is riding upon the storm in all His Divine majesty. The great need is for more faith in the omnipotent God.

By Mrs. Charles E. Cowman, taken from "Streams in the Dessert" Volume 2