“It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.” Lamentations 3:26
A believer may present a right petition in a right way, and yet he may not wait the Lord’s answer in His own time. He may appoint a time, and if the Lord does not answer within that period, he turns away, resigning all expectation of an answer.
There is such a thing as waiting for the Lord. The apostle alludes to and enjoins this holy patience, when he speaks to the Ephesians of “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance.” A believer may present his request- may have some degree of nearness in urging it- may press it with fervency- and yet, forgetting the hoping, quiet, waiting patience which ought invariably to mark a praying soul; he may lose the blessing he has sought. There is such a thing as “waiting upon the Lord.”
Oh; how long have we made Him to wait for us! For years, it may be, we kept Him knocking, and standing, and waiting at the door of our hearts, until His own Spirit took the work in His own hands, and unlocked the heart, and the Savior entered. The Lord would now often have us wait His time in answering prayer. And, if the vision tarry, still let us wait, and hope, and expect. Let the delay but stimulate hope, and increase desire, exercise faith, and multiply petitions at the mercy-seat. It will come when the Lord sees best.
A believer may lose the answer to his prayer, by dictating to the Lord the mode, as well as the time, of answering. The Lord has His own mode of blessing His people. We may prescribe the way the Lord should answer, but He may send the blessing to us through an opposite channel, in a way we never thought of, and should never have selected.
Sovereignty sits regent upon the throne, and in no aspect is its exercise more manifestly seen than in selecting the way and the means by which the prayers of the saints of God are answered. Dictate not to the Lord. If you ask a blessing through a certain channel, or in a prescribed way, let it be with the deepest humility of mind, and with perfect submission to the will of God.
Be satisfied to receive the blessing in any way which a good and covenant God may appoint. Be assured, it will be in that way that will most glorify Himself, and secure to you the greatest amount of blessing.
Octavious Winslow
HEY go from strength to strength. There are various renderings of these words, but all of them contain the idea of progress.
Our own good
translation of the authorized version is enough for us this morning.
"They go from strength to strength." That is, they grow stronger and
stronger. Usually, if we are walking, we go from strength to weakness;
we start fresh and in good order for our journey, but by-and-by the road
is rough, and the sun is hot, we sit down by the wayside, and then
again painfully pursue our weary way. But the Christian pilgrim having
obtained fresh supplies of grace, is as vigorous after years of toilsome
travel and struggle as when he first set out. He may not be quite so
elate and buoyant, nor perhaps quite so hot and hasty in his zeal as he
once was, but he is much stronger in all that constitutes real power,
and travels, if more slowly, far more surely. Some gray-haired veterans
have been as firm in their grasp of truth, and as zealous in diffusing
it, as they were in their younger days; but, alas, it must be confessed
it is often otherwise, for the love of many waxes cold and iniquity
abounds, but this is their own sin and not the fault of the promise
which still holds good: "The youths shall faint and be weary, and the
young men shall utterly fall, but they that wait upon the Lord shall
renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they
shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint." Fretful
spirits sit down and trouble themselves about the future. "Alas!" say
they, "we go from affliction to affliction." Very true, O thou of little
faith, but then thou goest from strength to strength also. Thou shalt
never find a bundle of affliction which has not bound up in the midst of
it sufficient grace. God will give the strength of ripe manhood with
the burden allotted to full-grown shoulders.
Y soul
begin this wintry month with thy God. The cold snows and the piercing
winds all remind thee that He keeps His covenant with day and night, and
tend to assure thee that He will also keep that glorious covenant which
He has made with thee in the person of Christ Jesus. He who is true to
His Word in the revolutions of the seasons of this poor sin-polluted
world, will not prove unfaithful in His dealings with His own
well-beloved Son.
