Pleasant Stone Devotional Meditation: October 15

“From the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard …” ~ Daniel 10:12

God’s great daughter, Mrs. Charles E. Cowman, once said to me [Eugenia Price, the author]: “Genie, all great books are born in the furnace.” I do not believe writing “in the furnace” is a guarantee that a book will be great, but I take hope that it means a book may be useful. And I take the hope from the flames which have leaped almost joyfully about me as I have written much of this book!

The flames leaped with joy because they knew what they were doing for me. But I confess, I fought them and tried to escape for the first few days. And then I had to put this verse among our “green stones” for rejoicing, because although the flames have not all gone out around me, I see what they are doing.

And in the seeing, I have been willing, on one particular point, to “set [my] heart to understand” for the first time. This conflict of mine, like yours, I had “surrendered” and “surrendered” and “surrendered.” Back it kept coming to haunt me. At last, God seemed to say “… set thine heart to understand what I am trying to do in you and for you. Be willing not to feel a victim of this thing. Open your heart to understand what I have to say in it, even though the words may sound strange to you at first.”

I set my heart to understand and to my amazement, I began to get God’s point. At first, I didn’t want to get it, because it meant I had to let go of one of my most beloved symptoms! But God is faithful. And once I opened my heart to understand without resisting Him, I saw that it was good “to chasten [myself] before … God.” In other words, to be willing to be changed even at the place where I least wanted to be.

“From the first day thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, THY WORDS WERE HEARD.”