Are you a bruised flower? By Octavius Winslow

It is in times of soul abasement that the love, tenderness, and grace of the Holy Spirit are better known. As a comforter, as a revealer of Jesus, we are perhaps more fully led into an acquaintance with the work of the Spirit in seasons of soul abasement than at any other time.

the mode and time of His divine manifestation are thus beautifully predicted, He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth. Psalm 72.6. Observe the gentleness, the silence, and the sovereignty of His operation. He shall come down like rain. How characteristic of the Blessed Spirit's grace! Then mark the occasion on which He descends. It is at the time of the soul's deep prostration. The waving grass is mowed, the lovely flower is laid low, the fruitful stem is broken. that which was beautiful, fragrant, and precious, is cut down.

The fairest first to fade, the loveliest first to die, the fondest first to depart. Then, when the blessing is gone, and the spirit is bowed, When the heart is broken, the mind is dejected, and the world seems clad in wintry desolation and gloom, the Holy Spirit, in all the softening, reviving, comforting, and refreshing influence of His grace, descends, speaks of the beauty of Jesus, leads to the grace of Jesus, lifts the bowed soul, and reposes it on the bosom of Jesus.

Precious and priceless, then, beloved, are the seasons of a believer's humiliation. They tell of the soul's emptiness, of Christ's fullness, of the creature's insufficiency, of Christ's all-sufficiency, of the world's poverty, of Christ's affluence. They create a necessity which Jesus supplies, a void which Jesus fills, a sorrow which Jesus soothes, a desire which Jesus satisfies. They endear the cross of the incarnate God. They reveal the hidden glory of Christ's humiliation. They sweeten prayer. They lift the soul to God.

Are you as a bruised flower? Are you as a broken stem? Does some heavy trial now bow you in the dust? O never, perhaps, were you so truly beautiful! Never did your grace send forth such fragrance, Or your prayers ascend with so sweet an odour. Never did faith and hope and love Develop their hidden glory so richly, so fully, as now.

in the eyes of a wounded, a bruised and a humbled Christ, you were never more lovely and never more precious to His heart than now. Pierced by His hand, smitten by His rod, humbled by His chastisement, laid low at His feet, condemning yourself, justifying Him, taking to yourself all the shame, and ascribing to Him all the glory.