Quotes from L.B. Cowman

Nearly all of God's jewels are crystallized tears.

If life were always smooth and level, the boring sameness would weigh us down. We need the valleys and the hills.

Drop Your still dews of quietness, Till all our strivings cease: Take from our souls the strain and stress; And let our ordered lives confess The beauty of Your peace. Breathe through the pulses of desire Your coolness and Your balm; Let sense be mum, its beats expire: Speak through the earthquake, wind and fire, O still small voice of calm!

When faith goes to the market, it always takes a basket.

The dark brown soil is turned By the sharp-pointed plow; And I've a lesson learned. My life is but a field, Stretched out beneath God's sky, Some harvest rich to yield. Where grows the golden grain? Where faith? Where sympathy? In a furrow cut by pain. Maltbie D. Babcock

If I see God in everything, He will calm and color everything I see! Perhaps the circumstances causing my sorrows will not be removed and my situation will remain the same, but if Christ is brought into my grief and gloom as my Lord and Master, He will "surround me with songs of deliverance" (Ps. 32:7).

Believe and trust; through stars and suns, Through life and death, through soul and sense, His wise, paternal purpose runs; The darkness of His Providence Is starlit with Divine intents.

if you desire to know God's voice, never consider the final outcome or the possible results. Obey Him even when He asks you to move while you still see only darkness, for He Himself will be a glorious light within you.

I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. (Philippians 4:11)

When nothing whereon to lean remains, When strongholds crumble to dust; When nothing is sure but that God still reigns, That is just the time to trust. 'Tis better to walk by faith than sight, In this path of yours and mine; And the pitch-black night, when there's no outer light Is the time for faith to shine.

Remember that we have no more faith at any time than we have in the hour of trial. All that will not bear to be tested is mere carnal confidence. Fair-weather faith is no faith. C. H. SPURGEON

God makes you "see troubles." Sometimes, as part of your education being carried out, you must "go down to the depths of the earth" (Ps. 63:9), travel subterranean passages, and lie buried among the dead. But not for even one moment is the bond of fellowship and oneness between God and you strained to the point of breaking. And ultimately, from the depths, He "will restore [your] life again.

That sorrow and privation, the yoke borne in the youth, the soul's enforced restraint, are all conducive to an iron tenacity and strength of purpose, and endurance or fortitude, which are the indispensable foundation and framework of a noble character.

Joy sometimes needs pain to give it birth.

Dear believer, after experiencing the terrible valley of suffering, did you depart with the spoils? When you were struck with an injury and you thought you had lost everything, did you trust in God to the point that you came out richer than you were before? Being "more than [a] conqueror" means taking the spoils from the enemy and appropriating them for yourself. What your enemy had planned to use for your defeat, you can confiscate for your own use.

the greatest triumph of faith is to be still and know that He is God.

Remember, the very time for faith to work is when our sight begins to fail. And the greater the difficulties, the easier it is for faith to work, for as long as we can see certain natural solutions to our problems, we will not have faith. Faith never works as easily as when our natural prospects fail. George Mueller

The greatest victory of faith is to stand at the shore of the impassable Red Sea and to hear the Master say, "Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today" (Ex. 14:13),

All things together work for good. Fret not, nor fear!