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WAIT UPON THE LORD

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 25, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 47.

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WAIT UPON THE LORD.

By Arthur Fox

PATIENT waiting for the Lord is an essential feature of the Christian character. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord.” Isa. 55:8. “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Prov. 14:12. “Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.” Ps. 27:14. “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.”
You can make the clock strike before its hour by putting your hands on it, but it will strike wrong. You can tear the rosebud open before its time, but you mar the beauty of the rose. So we may spoil many a rich blessing which God is preparing for us, by our own eager haste. “Like the stars in the vast circuit of their appointed path, God’s purposes know no haste and no delay.” He is weaving our lives into patterns of beauty and strength. Let us submit ourselves to Him as clay in the hands of the potter, to be moulded and fashioned according to His divine purpose. He has a perfect plan for each. Don’t pull at the threads of life, nor hurry the Almighty’s plan; but wait, patiently wait, not as Jonah, who waited to see things work out according to his ideas, until the booth above his head was withered by the hot sun, and his patience severely tried. We may not know God’s plan nor see, at once, His angels working in our behalf, “but if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it” (Rom. 8:25), knowing that “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.” Isa. 40:31.
God can make grief a grace, the burden a blessing, and light up the disappointment so that it becomes the torch of hope. The rod itself shall bud and blossom and bring forth almonds, so that everything that chastens us shall present beauty and fruit.
St. Helena, Cal. ARTHUR FOX.