Genesis 32:22

Waiting upon God is vital in order to see Him and receive a vision from Him. And the amount of time spent before Him is also critical, for our hearts are like a photographer’s film—the longer exposed, the deeper the impression.

For God’s vision to be impressed on our hearts, we must sit in stillness at His feet for quite a long time. Remember, the troubled surface of a lake will not reflect an image.

There is nothing that makes the Scriptures more precious to us than a time of “captivity.” The old psalms of God’s Word have sung for us with compassion by our stream at Babel and have resounded with new joy as we have seen the Lord deliver us from captivity and “restore our fortunes, . . . like streams in the Negev” (Psalm 126:4).

A person who has experienced great difficulties will not be easily parted from his Bible. Another book may appear to others to be identical, but to him it is not the same. Over the old and tear-stained pages of his Bible, he has written a journal of his experiences in words that are only visible to his eyes. Through those pages, he has time and again come to the pillars of the house of God and “to Elim, where there were . . . palm trees” (Exodus 15:27). And each of those pillars and trees have become a remembrance for him of some critical time in his life.