God always hears, and He never forgets. His silence does not mean that He is not listening and is not planning. Probably it means that the best time of deliverance has not come yet, and that He is patiently waiting for the moment to arrive when He may prove His love and His power.

Cromwell said to his soldiers just before a great battle: “Know ye soldiers all, that God always comes to man’s help in the nick of time.”

Yes, God is always on time; never behind and never ahead. Happy the man who learns to wait as he prays, and never loses patience with God.

MEN WHO PRAYED

There is a set time for putting into the furnace, and a set time for taking out of the furnace.

There is a time for pruning the branches of the vine, and there is a time when the husbandman lays aside the pruning hook.

Let us wait His time; “He that believeth shall not make haste” (Isaiah 28:16 KJV). God’s time is the best time. But shall we come out the same as we went in? Ah, no! We “will come forth as gold” (Job 23:10). We shall become purer vessels to hold the sweet-smelling incense of praise and prayer. We shall become holy golden vessels for the Master’s use in time and in Eternity.

“When a great issue is in the balance and the path is obscure, wait; but with that waiting shirk not the work that lieth before thee, for in that task may be the solution of thy problem.”

God will justify you before the universe in His own time. OTTO STOCKMAYER