From time to time I come across great truths and great quotes in my devotional reading that I feel should be shared with others.  One of my favorite devotional resources is “Streams in the Desert”, volume one, by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman. The following quotation from A.B. Simpson is in the May 18 devotional.

“The pressure of hard places makes us value life.  Every time our life is given back to us from such a trial, it is like a new beginning, and we learn better how much  it is worth, and make more of it for God and man.  The pressure helps us to understand the trials of others, and fits us to help and sympathize with them.

There is the shallow, superficial nature, that gets hold of a theory or a promise lightly, and talks very glibly about the distrust of those who shrink from every trial; but the man or woman who has suffered much never does this, but is tender and gentle, and knows what suffering  really means.  This is what Paul meant when he said, “Death worketh in you.”

Trials and hard places are needed to press us forward, even as the furnace fires in the hold of that mighty ship give force that moves the piston, drives the engine, and propels that great vessel across the sea in the face of the winds and waves.”  A.B. Simpson