Psalms 87:7

It was when Job’s glory was fresh in him that his “bow was renewed” in his hand. Freshness and glory! And yet the brilliant music of these words is brought down to a minor strain by the little touch “it was”—not it is.

“All my [fresh] springs are in thee” (Psalm 87:7 KJV).

There are both “upper and lower springs” in life, and they are springs, not stagnant pools. They are the joys and blessings that flow from heaven above, through the hottest summer and through the most barren desert of sorrow and trials. The land belonging to Acsah was in the Negev under the scorching sun and was often parched from the burning heat. But from the hills came the inexhaustible springs that cooled, refreshed, and fertilized all the land.

These springs flow through the low places, the difficult places, the desert places, the lonely places, and even the ordinary places of life. And no matter what our situation may be, these springs can always be found.

What a contrast there is between a barren desert and the luxuriant oasis with its waving palms and its glorious verdure! Between gaunt and hungry flocks and the herds that lie down in green pastures and beside the still waters; between the viewless plain and the mountain height with its “land of far distances.”

What a difference there is between the aridity of an artificial, irrigated, stinted existence—a desert existence—and a life of abundant rains, crowding vegetation, and harvests that come almost of themselves— the abundant life!

Our Lord never patches up our natural virtues, He re-makes the whole man on the inside. "Put on the new man," i.e., see that your natural human life puts on the garb that is in keeping with the new life. The life God plants in us develops its own virtues, not the virtues of Adam but of Jesus Christ.

Watch how God will wither up your confidence in natural virtues after sanctification, and in any power you have, until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus. Thank God if you are going through a drying-up experience!