July 1

Restrained favors

“Therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you” (Isa. 30:18).
“For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry” (Hab. 2:3).

Yet there are delays in the answers to our prayers. As the husbandman does not reap today that which he sowed yesterday, so neither do we always at once obtain from the Lord that which we seek from Him. The door of grace does open, but not to our first knocks. Why is this? It is because the mercy will be all the greater for being longer on the road. There is a time for every purpose under Heaven, and everything is best in its time. Fruit ripens in its season, and the more seasonable it is the better it is. Untimely mercies would be only half mercies, therefore the Lord withholds them till they have come to their perfection. Even Heaven itself will be all the better because it will not be ours till it is prepared for us, and we are prepared for it.


Love presides over the arrangements of grace, and strikes upon the bell when the best moment has arrived. God blesses us by His temporary delays, as well as by His prompt replies. We are not to doubt the Lord because His time has not yet come: that would be to act like petulant children, who must have a thing at the instant, or else they think they shall never have it. A waiting God is the true object of confidence to His waiting people. “Therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you” (Isa. 30:18). His compassions fail not even when His gracious operations appear to be suspended, and our griefs are deepened. Yea, it is because He loves us so much that He tries us by delaying His answers of peace. It is with our Father in Heaven even as it was with our Lord on earth: “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was” (John 11:5-6). Love closes the hand of divine bounty, and restrains the outflow of favor, when it sees that a solid gain will ensue from a period of trial
.—C. H. Spurgeon.

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