WAIT by Laura C. Nourse

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 12, 1878

WAIT

By Laura C. Nourse

To sit calmly down and wait, to be able to keep our hearts from uncharitable thoughts and our lips from hasty utterances in this age of hurry and strife, of quick deductions and lightning calculations, requires much of moral force, of rigid self-control, of firmness of purpose, and, above all, a nearness to God that will enable us, always and everywhere, to exercise that charity so prominently brought out in the New Testament Scriptures, and which so eminently characterized the life and teachings of Christ, the Son of God.

How many of us have ever comprehended the meaning of the word wait, or attempted to put into execution our well-defined ideas concerning it? We are hasty in our judgment, quick in our condemnation, bitter and unsparing in our censure. We coolly and calmly criticise the opinions and actions of friends and enemies alike, and putting ourselves in the rightful seat of the Judge of all the earth, pass upon our fellow-men sentence of condemnation. With surprising effrontery and boldness, we even dare to enter the inner chambers of the heart, and, with ruthless and relentless hand, wresting from the sorrowful lives of those around us their secret griefs and sorrows, their misery and suffering, heartlessly parade them before the world, and unfeelingly pass upon them our hollow and flippant judgment; a verdict, many times, utterly devoid of justice, and from which every lingering vestige of mercy has been carefully and deliberately crushed out.

God is just, and tempers justice with mercy. Do we? Do we ever consider it necessary to pause, to wait until we may calmly and justly weigh the evidence, until we know something of the, it may be, peculiar circumstances which have conspired to produce the act that we condemn?

Do we forget in our pitiable self-righteousness that we are weak and human? And do we dare to hope that He who “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin,” will not deem it needful, for our fuller development and furtherance in the divine life, to subject even us, to just that measure of temptation that has proven too great for our fellow? Shall we stand the test, and be able to “cast the first stone”?

Even in the petty details of every-day life, how much need have we to learn how the meaning of patient waiting, to study the motives, to understand the purposes of those with whom our business or social relations bring us in contact.

We need to keep our own hearts pure, our own lives above suspicion, our own lips from hasty words; and, doing this, we shall be better able to exercise the great gift of charity; to remember our own frailty; to wait for the development of motives and the justification of actions. Let us exercise forbearance with the failings of others, and seek by loving sympathy and gentle, kindly acts, prompted by hearts which beat in unison with the great heart of God, to remove temptation from the pathway of the weak, to comfort and strengthen those who shrink and falter beneath the burden which the cruel griefs and sufferings of this poor life have put upon them, to help other lives into the life of God, and other souls into the kingdom of Heaven. So shall we be ever ready for the lessons a loving Father designs to teach us, whether they come through pain and affliction, or the brighter rays of sunshine and prosperity.

Let love without dissimulation rule our lives and govern our acts, uniting us in a common bond of sympathy to God and humanity, and in the end gaining for us a sure entrance into life everlasting.

“In patience and faith, let our hearts be still ‘Neath the toils of each passing day; Let our Father teach us what lessons he will, In his loving and merciful way. Thus sitting in meekness at Jesus’ feet, As slowly we learn each line, The bitter and dark will be clear and sweet, Made plain by a light divine.” LAURA C. NOURSE.