Waiting

’ ‘The Lord will wait... Wait for Him.” — Is A. xxx, 1 8.

Y/Eare all familiar with the waiting hours of life, when the stream hardly seems to move, or the air to stir; when the heart grows sick with deferred hope, and begins to question whether its way may not be hidden from the Lord, and its judgment passed over from its God. There are hours on languid summer days when all nature seems to have become stagnant — the aspen-leaf does not quiver; the fish does not rise in the pool; the hum of the bee becomes less frequent and more drowsy; and the shadow hardly moves on the dial — and these hours in nature find their counterpart in the monotony of life’s common round, the common-place routine of its daily task.

Such waiting times were wearily passing over the godly at Jerusalem while the invader was drawing his coils ever nearer to the doomed city, and the ambassadors were being cajoled in Egypt by false hopes; and ceaseless prayers to God were apparently bringing no response. To such the prophet addressed these words, encouraging them to believe that God was not unmindful of their case, but was waiting that He might act more graciously toward them than He could by answering them at once; and that He would finally be very gracious in responding to the voice of their cry.

We, too, have sometimes been inclined to stagger at God’s delays. When we have prayed for immediate deliverance from some pressing sorrow; for the conversion of seme beloved relative; for our own growth in grace and victory over sin — it has seemed as if the prayer had lost its way, or had become relegated to some corner of the Divine mind, where it was in danger of being over-looked. And we have begun to question the usefulness of prayer, and to wonder if our cries and tears were achieving any result. As a reply to such surmising, how comforting the assurance of the text — God waits that He may be gracious; i.e., He waits until there is such a combination of circumstances, and such a refining of character, that He can do ever so much better than if He had interposed in the first moments of our agonized appeal.

He does not delay because of any caprice. We must not think that heaven has favorites, who are always served first. There is no partiality or favoritism with our Father. He chastens those whom He loves. The first come last. Each is dealt with according to his own merits, and on the ground of the peculiar necessities of his case.

He does not delay because of any neglect. A woman may forget her sucking child, but our Saviour cannot forget us. We are graven as with a point of the rugged nail on the palms of his hand. We are his babes, needing hourly attention; the members of His body, fed by His constant life; the constituent parts of His Bride, whom He nourishes and cherishes as Himself. Sooner might His right hand forget its cunning than he not count us above His chief joy.

He does not delay because He denies. Our heart sometimes so interpretes His dealings; but they do not really mean what our timorous faith reads into them. The remittance is not sent as asked; yet that does not prove that it is not there in our name, but only that it is being kept at interest, accumulating till it reach a higher figure and be more of service, because coming at a time of greater need. No! His delays are the children of his love. He waits that He may be gracious, He dams up the current, that by holding it back it may become a swifter, fuller stream. And what results are served by this prolonged delay?

The energy of the flesh dies down. There is nothing which so tames and subdues us as waiting. So long as we are able to do something, the flesh-life is kept vigorous and strong; but it is speedily worn out by waiting — as the life of the criminal would be worn out by the slow process of death on the cross. And there is no kinder thing that God can do for us than to destroy the egotism, the self-assertiveness of our life, and to bring its pride to the dust. Waiting with mountains on either side, the sea in front, and the foe behind, is enough to empty the stoutest heart of its self-confidence, and to make it cry out to the strong for aid.

We often cease to want the very things on which we had set our hearts. Thus it has happened, as the years have passed, that we have seen reason to admire and adore the wise love which witheld that on which we had set our hearts with passionate intensity. We have discerned God’s reasons for witholding, and we have had our own thankfulness.

Our character also becomes riper by waiting. It is better for the young man to accumulate his fortune slowly, because he learns to value his money rightly, and to spend it well. Better for the student to acquire knowledge by degrees, because he gains habits of industry which are simply invaluable. Better for the saint to grow to goodness by long and insensible progress, that he may be able to sympathize with those who are beginning to take the

4§ ‘Waiting- ’

upward path. The tree must grow, ere it can carry its full weight of fruit. The eye needs strength, ere it can gaze upon the sun. The apostles must tarry at Jerusalem, that they may become mature and Spirit-taught, before they can bear without injury the tears and prayers of three thousand souls at Pentecost.

Moreover, we secure larger results by waiting. If the Egyptian farmer is too impatient, and sows his seeds before the Nile has reached its full flood, they will not be carried to the furthest limit of his ground, and his harvest will suffer. So often there is a result which may be gained by patient waiting which would defy us if we snatched at it. What folly to let out the molten metal from the cistern till the mould is perfectly ready to receive it!

For all these reasons will the lord wait, that He may be gracious. And when patience has had its perfect work, and there is no further reason for delay, He will be very gracious at the voice of our cry.

Abraham waited for twenty-five years; and we can never gauge the agony of that long suspense for a man who had no Bible, no experience of other men, no long record of the past. But in the end he became the father, not of Isaac only, but of all who believe. God waited that He might be gracious.

Job waited through slow-moving arguments, that may have consumed weeks or months. Unable to enter God’s presence-chamber to plead his cause, he was compelled to await its slow unfolding in the hands of his great Advocate and God; but at last he obtained a further revelation than he had been capable of in the earlier stages of that great controversy. God waited that He might be gracious.

David waited from early boyhood to mature manhood, ere the throne of the whole nation became his. But it came at last. The fruit was ripe, and it fell into his hands. And it was better far that his adversaries should be put out of the way, apart from his own agency, than that he should appear in any way to snatch at what was not legitimately his. All Israel was finally prepared, and in God’s time, to own and accept his supremacy. God waited that He might be gracious.

Elijah, over-tired with the conflict on Carmel, and the eager speed with which he fled from Jezebel, lay on the desert floor, and asked to die. But instead of death’s gaunt form, angels ministered to him food and sleep; and he lived long enough to see the solemn pomp of Horeb’s theophany, and to receive the distinguished honor of translation in chariot and horses of flame. God waited that he might be gracious.

The two sisters gently reproached the blessed Lord, that He had not hurried to them at the first appeal they made to Him. “When he heard, therefore, that he was sick, he abode four days still in the same place where He was.” But they learned that the delay was intended to make a greater miracle possible, and to reveal the Lord Jesus as the Resurrection and the Life, after a sublimer fashion than had been possible had He only raised His friend from his malady in its earlier stages. He waited that He might be gracious.

Dare, then, to trust your Heavenly Father at any cost; and when heart and flesh fail, still bid your soul to hope in God, and buoy it up with the assurance that it shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance. God is good when He gives; but better when He keeps in order to give an accumulated blessing, heaped up, pressed down, and running over, into the bosom of His child in whom patience has had her perfect work.

“He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry”(ver. 19). It passes tongue or pen to tell all that is contained in that word very. Suffice it to say that motherhood and fatherhood meet in Him; and that all which delicacy, and tact, and thoughtfuness can do, will be done for the soul that waiteth for Him. And during the long delay, little acts of tenderness will keep coming into the soul, making it aware that He is near; as when in a time of suspense, and a beloved one is anticis pating an operation, love is alwaybusy providing little alleviations of the pain, small diversions from the one absorbing thought, and delicate assurances of sympathy.

But we must wait. This as all we can do safely. Many will bid us go here or there, and do this or the other. Our heart often prompts us to repeat Saul’s great mistake, and to offer the sacrifice, though Samuel has not arrived, but if we obey either of these promptings, we become involved in endless sorrow, and weave webs in which we become hopelessly entangled For your own safety’s sake, stand still; wait and see the salvation of God.

But whilst we wait, there should be the expectant outlook. We must not cower in the dark closet, but climb to our watch-tower and scan the horizon. We must look out for God’s carrier-pigeons; lest they come to the cote with messages under their wings which we may miss. We must go down to the quay; or God’s heavily freighted ships may touch there, and go away without discharging their cargoes. We must imitate the shipwrecked sailor, who keeps the fire lit by night, and is incessantly on the outlook for passing ships; else a search expedition may come near his poor islet and miss him.

Those who wait thus cannot be ashamed. It is impossible that God should disappoint the hope which he has instilled and nourished in the heart of His child. That hope is the shadow of coming blessing; to have the one is to be sure of the other in his own good time. “We are saved by hope.” “And hope maketh not ashamed.” “Lord,” sayeth the Psalmist, “let none that wait on Thee be ashamed.” “My people,” is the reiterated Divine response, “shall never be ashamed.” They that wait for a providence, says the old proverb, shall never be without a providence to wait for. What a blessedness is here!

And as the face is ever turned in one direction, it becomes assimilated to the image of that visage on which the eye is so persistently fixed. “Beholding it we are changed.”

There is not much difference between the two Hebrew words for waiting and singing. And it is certain that the one soon passes into the other. Hence it is that many of the Psalms, which begin with the plaintive expressions of waiting, climb up into joyful outburst of gladness and thanksgiving. Take heart, O troubled child of God! He waits that He may be gracious. He can make no mistakes. He has His eye on the dial His finger on your pulse; He notices the coming and going of the tremulous life. He will not be a moment before His time, nor a moment after.

“Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan His work in vain;

God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain,