The Silver Lining: Chapter 13 - The Rejoicing Desert
By John Henry Jowett
"The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose."--Isaiah xxxv. 1.
THERE is nothing more interesting and fascinating than to watch the transformation of the barren into the beautiful. Conversion is often more wonderful than creation. We gaze with extraordinary attention as some half-repellent thing passes through some mysterious process, and in the process becomes lovely.
There is always something alluring about the transformation of the desert.
In my schooldays I had a drawing-master who was a very pronounced expert in his profession, and he adorned the walls of the schoolroom with many of his own creations. I have almost completely forgotten those masterpieces, but I perfectly well remember the transformation of one of my own drawings into a thing of comparative beauty. The drawing itself, as I had left it, was fearfully imperfect, and I looked upon it almost with feelings of loathing; but the master touched it and retouched it, and the half-ugly thing became a passable representation of an ancient arch. "The desert was made to rejoice and blossom as the rose."
I know two places in Newcastle-on-Tyne, Jesmond Dene and Brandling Park. Jesmond Dene was always beautiful, even before it became a public resort. A few pathways were cut through it, and it was made a little more hospitable to the crowd. But Brandling Park was once an eyesore to the city. It was the place of a common tip, where loads of rubbish were heaped together. And then the municipality determined to change this eyesore into a winsome thing, and they converted it into a beautiful park. Often, on my way to my church, have I rested amid its beautiful green and flowers, and I have rejoiced in the transformation of the repellent into the lovely. "The desert rejoiced and blossomed like the rose." The conversion of Brandling Park was even more wonderful than the original creation of Jesmond Dene.
It is not long since the first trees were planted in the great work of re-afforesting the Black Country. In all broad England there is no stretch of country more depressing than that which lies in dismal waste between Birmingham and Wolverhampton. And now the attempt is being made to transform it, and to redeem the Black Country from its well-deserved notoriety. Yes, it is transformation that arrests our attention. And here is a gracious promise from our God, offering a very miracle of transformation in human life. Just as the eyesore was turned into a park, just as the Black Country is being re-beautified, so the Lord will lay hold of the Black Country of the soul and convert it into His own garden. Let us take the great, mighty promise round about the circuit of our life, let us plant it like an inspiring banner over our deserts, that waving there it may proclaim our wonderful possibilities in the redeeming grace of Christ.
It is not long since the first trees were planted in the great work of re-afforesting the Black Country. In all broad England there is no stretch of country more depressing than that which lies in dismal waste between Birmingham and Wolverhampton. And now the attempt is being made to transform it, and to redeem the Black Country from its well-deserved notoriety. Yes, it is transformation that arrests our attention. And here is a gracious promise from our God, offering a very miracle of transformation in human life. Just as the eyesore was turned into a park, just as the Black Country is being re-beautified, so the Lord will lay hold of the Black Country of the soul and convert it into His own garden. Let us take the great, mighty promise round about the circuit of our life, let us plant it like an inspiring banner over our deserts, that waving there it may proclaim our wonderful possibilities in the redeeming grace of Christ.
