When Heaven smiles and showers us with grace, then those blessings are truly precious. But without the rain from Heaven, expecting blessings from them is as hopeless as expecting water from a desert. "All my springs are in You," is the believer’s daily confession to the Lord—a confession that must remain

on our lips until death. Just as love comes from Heaven, it must be fed with heavenly bread. It cannot survive in the wilderness unless it’s nourished by manna from above. Love must feed on love. The very life and essence of our love for God is His love for us.

When Paul was old, sitting grey-haired and shivering in a Roman dungeon, he could say with greater conviction than we can—"I know whom I have believed," because every experience had been like climbing a hill, every trial like ascending another summit,

and his death seemed like reaching the top of the mountain, from which he could see the whole of the Lord’s faithfulness and love to whom he had committed his soul.