Highs and Lows

I received a 93 on my last English paper, which I was pretty proud about until our test grade was posted. College life is full of highs and lows like that. If you aren't careful, one bad grade or one wrong decision can leave you feeling terrible and make you forget all of the right choices you've made or good things that you've done. Today, we've provided an excerpt from L.B. Cowman’s devotional book “Streams in the Desert.” In this book, Cowman presents a different Bible verse each day along with an application of the verse in our lives today. In the devotion below, Cowman talks about not letting failure overshadow successes—something that’s easy to do in college.

Fresh Touch with God

"And the ill favored and lean-fleshed [cows] did Eat up the seven well favored and fat [cows]…and the thin, [heads of grain] swallowed up the seven rank and full [heads of grain]" (Gen. 41:4, 7).

There is a warning for us in that dream, just as it stands: It is possible for the best years of our life, the best experiences, the best victories won, the best service rendered, to be swallowed up by times of failure, defeat, dishonor, uselessness in the kingdom. Some men's lives of rare promise and rare achievement have ended so. It is awful to think of, but it is true. Yet it is never necessary.

 S. D. Gordon has said that the only assurance of safety against this tragedy is "fresh touch with God," daily, hourly. The blessed, fruitful, victorious experiences of yesterday are not only of no value to me today, but they will actually be eaten up or reversed by today's failures, unless they serve as incentives to still better, richer experiences today.

 "Fresh touch with God," by abiding in Christ, alone will keep the lean kine and the ill favored grain out of my life.  --Messages for the Morning Watch

Taken from the devotional book “Streams in the Desert” by L.B. Cowman.