God is never in a hurry but spends years with those He expects to greatly use. He never thinks the days of preparation too long or too dull.
The hardest ingredient in suffering is often time. A short, sharp pang is easily borne, but when a sorrow drags its weary way through long, monotonous years, and day after day returns with the same dull routine of hopeless agony, the heart loses its strength, and without the grace of God, is sure to sink into the very sullenness of despair. Joseph's was a long trial, and God often has to burn His lessons into the depths of our being by the fires of protracted pain. "He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver," but He knows how long, and like a true goldsmith He stops the fires the moment He sees His image in the glowing metal. We may not see now the outcome of the beautiful plan which God is hiding in the shadow of His hand; it yet may be long concealed; but faith may be sure that He is sitting on the throne, calmly waiting the hour when, with adoring rapture, we shall say, "All things have worked together for good." Like Joseph, let us be more careful to learn all the lessons in the school of sorrow than we are anxious for the hour of deliverance. There is a "need-be" for every lesson, and when we are ready, our deliverance will surely come, and we shall find that we could not have stood in our place of higher service without the very things that were taught us in the ordeal. God is educating us for the future, for higher service and nobler blessings; and if we have the qualities that fit us for a throne, nothing can keep us from it when God's time has come. Don't steal tomorrow out of God's hands. Give God time to speak to you and reveal His will. He is never too late; learn to wait.
"He never comes too late; He knoweth what is best;
Vex not thyself in vain; until He cometh--REST."
streams in the desert for august 30th "God's timing", l.b. cowman
my streams in the desert reading portion for today reminded me of a verse from my wednesday night "young adult" Bible study. where i am the oldest person in the room. and i have to leave early because youth activities finish up and no one else has a youth. or any kids. sigh. remember those days?
we are going through the o.t. prophets and this week was habakkuk. i loved this verse from habakkuk 2. where God is plainly telling habakkuk that what He has promised to do is not going to come early. in fact it will linger (wasn't that my word of the year a few years ago? God is SOOOOOO hilarious) but that it will NOT delay. it will be right on time. His time. not our time.
habakkuk 2:3b
Though it linger, wait for it;
it will certainly come
and will not delay.
in the king jimmy verses "linger" and "delay" are both the english word "tarry" but that is a bit misleading because they are totally different words in hebrew. one means tarry and the second one means that it will not "be deferred, kept back, stay away or hindered."
i love streams in the desert. now. but i didn't always. i tried to read it after college as a daily devotional (when i was really a young adult.) and i didn't "get it." so full of suffering. WHAT DO THEY MEAN WAIT ON GOD? wait for what? this is such a downer...
i understand it more now. i could have written some of the entries. they are underlined. prayer over. tear stained. met with a nodding of my head and a loud AMEN.
to everything there is a season... a time for when you don't even know what a desert is and a time you are looking for any streams in the desert.