He knoweth the way that I take.–Job 23:10
Man’s goings are of the Lord; how can a man then understand his own way?–Prov. 20:24
Someone wrote this little poem about a subject that grates on our nerves—-
Be quiet, why this anxious heed
About thy tangled ways?
God knows them all, He giveth speed,
And He allows delays.
Ah, that’s the problem—“He allows delays”. And we don’t like it. We want what we want when we want it. We tend to get irritated when things don’t go like we think they should. Some old folks spend their last years in bitter resentment because they can no longer do the things they used to do with ease. They become a curse to themselves and everyone within listening distance of their complaints. Perhaps these words from Stopford A. Brooke will help us view things differently:
We complain of the slow, dull life we are forced to lead, of our humble sphere of action, of our low position in the scale of society, of our having no room to make ourselves known, of our wasted energies, of our years of patience. So do we say that we have no Father who is directing our life; so do we say that God has forgotten us; so do we boldly judge what life is best for us, and so by our complaining do we lose the use and profit of the quiet years. O men of little faith! Because you are not sent out yet into your labor, do you think God has ceased to remember you? Because you are forced to be outwardly inactive, do you think you, also, may not be, in your years of quiet, “about your Father’s business”? It is a period given to us in which to mature ourselves for the work which God will give us to do.
