The wait

A few days ago I wrote about the promise God gives of renewed strength for those who "wait on Him." A friend sent some quotes from a classic book, Waiting on God, by Andrew Murray. I still want to understand more about waiting in general, and also whether "waiting on" has a deeper meaning than "waiting for." So here's what Murray said more than a hundred years ago:

"We who have to wait are tempted to fear that we do not wait aright, that our faith is too feeble, that our desire is not as upright or as earnest as it should be, that our surrender is not complete. Amid all these causes of fear or doubt, how blessed to hear the voice of God: 'Wait on the Lord! Be strong and let thine heart take courage! Yea, wait thou on the Lord'. . . .
"We are so accustomed to judge of God and His work in us by what we feel, that the great probability is that when we begin more to cultivate the waiting on Him, we shall be discouraged because we do not find any special blessing from it. . . .
"Oh, do learn the lesson! You are not going to wait on yourself to see what you feel and what changes come to you. You are going to WAIT ON GOD, to know first WHAT HE IS, and then after that, what He will do. . . .
"At our first entrance into the school of waiting upon God, the heart is chiefly set upon the blessings which we wait for. God graciously uses our need and desire for help to educate us for something higher than we were thinking of. We were seeking gifts; He, the Giver, longs to give Himself and to satisfy the soul with His goodness. It is just for this reason that He often withholds the gifts, and that the time of waiting is made so long. He is all the time seeking to win the heart of His child for Himself. . . ."

I was tempted to revise it into today's English; someone should do that sometime. I hope the archaic writing didn't hide the wisdom of what he wrote.

We enjoyed a wonderfully long night of sleep, still so thankful for safety on the trip home. We hope for a productive day of catching up at our respective offices.

Tomorrow I'll go to my regular quarterly check-up appointment with my surgeon, and on Wednesday I'll see the oncologist. I have a short list of questions and concerns I want to discuss with them.

Once again, I send you my heartfelt thanks for all your love and prayers.

Love,
Carol