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Waiting for God

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 21, 1868

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 32, No. 5.

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Waiting for God.

ONE morning while that terrible disease, the yellow fever, was raging in New Orleans, and many orphans and poor people were left houseless and alone, to the care of the benevolent and faithful, the Delta relates that “a boy was discovered lying in the grass of Claiborne Street, evidently bright and intelligent, but sick. A kind gentleman went to him, shook him by the shoulder, and asked him what he was doing there.
“Waiting for God to come for me,” said he.
“What do you mean?” said the gentleman, touched by the pathetic tone of the answer and the condition of the boy, in whose eye and flushed face he saw the evidence of the fever.
“‘God sent for mother, and father, and little brother,’ said he, ‘and took them away, and mother told me, when she was sick, that God would take care of me. I have no home, nobody to give me any thing, and so I came out here, and have been looking so long up in the sky for God to come and take care of me, as mother said he would. He will come, won’t he? Mother never told me a lie.’”
“‘Yes, my lad,’ said the man, overcome with emotion, ‘he has sent me to take care of you.’”
“‘You should have seen his eyes flash, and the smile of triumph break over his face, as he said:
“‘Mother never told me a lie, sir; but you’ve been so long on the way.’”
How simple and touching is such a boyish faith. And how true it is that God cares for us. Oh, if the children, and older folks too, would only trust in God to take care of them, how often would they be delivered from trouble.
And if the Lord takes care of the poor, he has some one whom he can send to help about it. Let us try to be workers with God. And when the Lord sends us, let us go quick. How many a poor, sick, sad one, may be to-day waiting for us to bring them help and comfort, either in word or deed, and yet “we are so long on the way,” that they get almost discouraged. Let us run in the way of God’s commandments.