When We Are Ready

*Blessed are all they that wait for him*   (Isa -  30:18)

We hear a great deal about waiting on God. There is, however, another side. When we wait on God, He is waiting till we are ready; when we wait for God, we are waiting till He is ready.

There are some people who say, and many more who believe, that as soon as we meet all the conditions, God will answer our prayers. They say that God lives in an eternal now; with Him there is no past nor future; and that if we could fulfill all that He requires in the way of obedience to His will, immediately our needs would be supplied, our desires fulfilled, our prayers answered.

There is much truth in this belief, and yet it expresses only one side of the truth. While God lives in an eternal now, yet He works out His purposes in time. A petition presented before God is like a seed dropped in the ground. Forces above and beyond our control must work upon it, till the true fruition of the answer is given.—The Still Small Voice

I longed to walk along an easy road,  

And leave behind the dull routine of home,  

Thinking in other fields to serve my God;  

But Jesus said, “My time has not yet come.”  

I longed to sow the seed in other soil,  

To be unfettered in the work, and free,  

To join with other laborers in their toil;  

But Jesus said, “’Tis not My choice for thee.”  

I longed to leave the desert, and be led  

To work where souls were sunk in sin and shame,  

That I might win them; but the Master said,  

“I have not called thee, publish here My name.”  

I longed to fight the battles of my King,  

Lift high His standards in the thickest strife;  

But my great Captain bade me wait and sing  

Songs of His conquests in my quiet life.  

I longed to leave the uncongenial sphere,  

Where all alone I seemed to stand and wait,  

To feel I had some human helper near,  

But Jesus bade me guard one lonely gate.  

I longed to leave the round of daily toil,  

Where no one seemed to understand or care;  

But Jesus said, “I choose for thee this soil,  

That thou might’st raise for Me some blossoms rare.”  

And now I have no longing but to do  

At home, or else afar, His blessed will,  

To work amid the many or the few;  

Thus, “choosing not to choose,” my heart is still.  

—Selected

“And Patience was willing to wait.”—Pilgrim’s Progress

Walk Without Strain

*And he saw them toiling in rowing*   (Mark - 6:48)

Straining, driving effort does not accomplish the work God gives man to do. Only God Himself, who always works without strain, and who never overworks, can do the work that He assigns to His children. When they restfully trust Him to do it, it will be well done and completely done. The way to let Him do His work through us is to partake of Christ so fully, by faith, that He more than fills our life.

A man who had learned this secret once said: “I came to Jesus and I drank, and I do not think that I shall ever be thirsty again. I have taken for my motto, ’Not overwork, but overflow’; and already it has made all the difference in my life.”

There is no effort in overflow. It is quietly irresistible. It is the normal life of omnipotent and ceaseless accomplishment into which Christ invites us today and always.—Sunday School Times

Be all at rest, my soul, O blessed secret,  

Of the true life that glorifies thy Lord:  

Not always doth the busiest soul best serve Him,  

But he that resteth on His faithful Word.  

Be all at rest, let not your heart be rippled,  

For tiny wavelets mar the image fair,  

Which the still pool reflects of heaven’s glory—  

And thus the image He would have thee bear.  

Be all at rest, my soul, for rest is service,  

To the still heart God doth His secrets tell;  

Thus shalt thou learn to wait, and watch, and labor,  

Strengthened to bear, since Christ in thee doth dwell.  

For what is service but the life of Jesus,  

Lived through a vessel of earth’s fragile clay,  

Loving and giving and poured forth for others,  

A living sacrifice from day to day.  

Be all at rest, so shalt thou be an answer  

To those who question, “Who is God and where?”  

For God is rest, and where He dwells is stillness,  

And they who dwell in Him, His rest shalt share.  

And what shall meet the deep unrest around thee,  

But the calm peace of God that filled His breast?  

For still a living Voice calls to the weary,  

From Him who said, “Come unto Me and rest.”  

—Freda Hanbury Allen

“In resurrection stillness there is resurrection power.”

The End Of Our Strength

*Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed*   (John -  20:29)

How strong is the snare of the things that are seen, and how necessary for God to keep us in the things that are unseen! If Peter is to walk on the water he must walk; if he is going to swim, he must swim, but he cannot do both. If the bird is going to fly it must keep away from fences and the trees, and trust to its buoyant wings. But if it tries to keep within easy reach of the ground, it will make poor work of flying.

God had to bring Abraham to the end of his own strength, and to let him see that in his own body he could do nothing. He had to consider his own body as good as dead, and then take God for the whole work; and when he looked away from himself, and trusted God alone, then he became fully persuaded that what He had promised, He was able to perform. That is what God is teaching us, and He has to keep away encouraging results until we learn to trust without them, and then He loves to make His Word real in fact as well as faith.—A. B. Simpson

I do not ask that He must prove  

His Word is true to me,  

And that before I can believe  

He first must let me see.  

It is enough for me to know  

’Tis true because He says ’tis so;  

On His unchanging Word I’ll stand  

And trust till I can understand.  

—E. M. Winter