[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":4},["ShallowReactive",2],{"reading-0710":3},"JULY 10\r\nI called upon him, but he gave me no answer (Song of Sol. 5:6).\r\nThe Lord, when He hath given great faith, hath been known to try it by long delayings. He has suffered His servants' voices to echo in\r\ntheir ears as from a brazen sky. They have knocked at the golden\r\ngate, but it has remained unmovable, as though it were rusted upon its hinges. Like Jeremiah, they have cried, \"Thou hast covered\r\nthyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.\"\r\nThus have true saints continued long in patient waiting without\r\nreply, not because their prayers were not vehement, nor because they were unaccepted, but because it so pleased Him who is\r\nSovereign, and who gives according to His own pleasure. If it\r\npleases Him to bid our patience exercise itself, shall He not do as He will with His own!\r\nNo prayer is lost Praying breath was never spent in vain. There is\r\nno such thing as prayer unanswered or unnoticed by God, and some things that we count refusals or denials are simply delays. --H.\r\nBonar.\r\nChrist sometimes delays His help that He may try our faith and\r\nquicken our prayers. The boat may be covered with the waves, and He sleeps on; but He will wake up before it sinks. He sleeps, but He\r\nnever oversleeps; and there are no \"too lates\" with Him. --Alexander Maclaren.\r\nBe still, sad soul! lift thou no passionate cry, But spread the desert of thy being bare\r\nTo the full searching of the All-seeing eye;\r\nWait! and through dark misgiving, black despair, God will come down in pity, and fill the dry\r\nDead place with light, and life, and vernal air. --J. C. Shairp.",1783499793196]