WAITING AT THE GATE
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"I wait for the Lord, my soul waits — and in His Word I hope." Psalm 130:5
I am a suppliant at the door of a palace, a beggar at the gate of a King, but with this gracious dissimilarity to usual petitioners — that the Lord of the palace is my personal Friend, and, though I am waiting outside at present, I possess an invitation to enter, and know that the door will be wide open to me some day. Nay, more than this, if I tell all that is in my heart — I am daily expecting that the King Himself will come and call me in, and admit me to His presence as His own child.
Well, my soul, this is a blessed condition of favor and privilege, surely! You may well afford to wait patiently for so glorious a hope as this. You know that waiting is far better thanwandering, and that silently uplifted hands, plead more eloquently than a torrent of words. Keep your tarrying, entreating posture; and if the summons comes not yet, it should be joy enough to wait and watch for His time and His will, and to anticipate the coming glory in which He has promised that you shall share.
For what do you say you are waiting? Alms? Entrance? Welcome? You have the first even now, for His bounty reaches you as you stand watching daily at His gates; and the better blessings are certain when He has perfected that which concerns you, for then you will know with glad surprise "what He has prepared for him who waits for Him."
Meanwhile, do you not get some wondrous glimpses of your glorious Friend through the lattices, and have there not been times when you did catch the sweet tones of His voice as He said, "I will come again, and receive you unto Myself"?
"I wait for the Lord." Blessed Master, I thank You for my waiting times — they are times of love and favor, they draw me nearer, closer, more urgently to Your feet. Your "delaysare not denials." Your tarryings do but ensure a more bountiful providing. When you seem slow to answer prayer, it is but to make me more eager for the mercy, or to teach me to ask with greater confidence, or that You may gather up Your blessings in order to bestow them "exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think."
"My soul waits." Ah, Lord! what special blessedness of sweet contentment I find in waiting before You, when You fill my heart with adoring love and gratitude, when I am silent, because no words are needed between You and my wondering soul, when I am humbled to the very dust by Your love and favor, yet lifted into the Heavenly places through Christ Jesus — and thus I wait, and watch, and worship! This is the waiting upon You which renews the strength of my spiritual life. This is the waiting that never wearies, the expectancy that never disappoints, the "hope that makes not ashamed." Oh, to be found thus waiting for God, and upon God, "until He comes!"
"And in His Word I hope." What is His "Word" to you this morning, my soul? Have you already gathered your daily manna, and tasted its sweetness? The Heavenly food lies thick around you, for the Lord has strewn the pages of His Word with promises of blessedness to those who wait for Him. And remember, His slightest Word stands fast and sure; it can never fail you. So, my soul, see that you "have a promise underneath you," for then your waiting will be resting, and a firm foothold for your hope will give you confidence in Him who has said, "those who wait for Me, shall not be ashamed."
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