It is easier to work than to wait. It is often more important to wait than to work. We can trust God to do the needed working while we are waiting; but if we are not willing to wait, and insist upon working while He would have us be still, we may interfere with the effective and triumphant working that He would do in our behalf. Our waiting may be the most difficult thing we can do; it may be the severest test that God can give us.

Oswald Chambers has said truly: one of the greatest strains in life is the strain of waiting for God. God takes the saint like a bow which He stretches; we get to a certain point and say I cannot stand any more, but God goes on stretching. He is not aiming at our mark but at His own, and the patience of the saints is that we hold on until He lets the arrow fly straight to His goal. If we are willing to remember God’s call and assurance, there need be no strain at all while we are waiting. The stretched bow time may be a time of unbroken rest for us as we are “still before the LORD and wait patiently for him” (Psalm 37:7).

Unless a violin string is stretched until it cries out when the bow is drawn over it, there is no music. A loose violin string with no strain upon it is of no use—it is dead, has no voice. But when stretched till it strains, it is brought to the proper tone, and then only is it useful to the music-maker. A. B. Simpson

In God’s eternal plan, a month, a year, Is but an hour of some slow April day, Holding the germs of what we hope or fear, To blossom far away. The Almighty is tedious, but He’s sure!

Lord , I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth.—A day in thy courts is better than a thousand.

I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.—Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple.

The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.—Therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted that he may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us: . . . let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.