There Is Silent Preparation Behind God's Delay

It is very helpful to remember that divine delay does not mean inactivity.

God is not idle when He does not answer us; He is busier preparing the answer than we think.

There have been men of genius who could only work irregularly; for long periods they seemed to do nothing at all. 

Then suddenly, and as if by inspiration, their powers took fire and they wrought at a white heat.

You may be sure of it that the periods in between were not so idle as the world considered them.

By thought, by reading, by communion with glad nature, half unconsciously they were preparing for their work.

And when the kindling came, and the fire burned within them, when they were divinely swept into utterance or action, they owed far more than we should ever guess to the silent preparation of delay.

As it is with men of genius, so with God, only in loftier and nobler ways. 

His delays are not the delays of inactivity. They are the delays of preparation.

In an instant the tropical storm may burst and break, yet for weeks - unseen - the storm has been preparing.

The sunshine of May comes, and all the world is green, yet on God's loom of January that robe was being spun.

And the morning breaks when at last some prayer is answered, and the desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose, yet the answer was being fashioned in these very years when we said there was no eye to pity and no arm to save.

It takes a million years to harden the ruby, says the poet, yet through all the years the hardening goes on.

It takes a century for the sea to wear away one cliff, yet every night when we sleep the breakers dash on it.

So when we pray and strive and nothing happens, till we are tempted to say "God does not know, God does not care," who can tell but that, behind the veil, infinite love may be toiling like the sea, to give us in the full time our heart's desire?

My Father worketh hitherto and I work." It is a mysterious word of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Perhaps God, like some of the busiest men I know, is doing most when He seems to be doing nothing

~George H. Morrison~