[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":4},["ShallowReactive",2],{"reading-0905":3},"SEPTEMBER 5\r\nBlessed are all they that wait for him (Isa. 30:18).\r\nWe hear a great deal about waiting on God. There is, However,\r\nanother side. When we wait on God, He is waiting till we are ready; when we wait for God, we are waiting tin He is ready.\r\nThere are some people who say, and many more who believe, that as soon as we meet all the conditions, God will answer our prayers.\r\nThey say that God lives in an eternal now; with Him there is no past nor future; and that if we could fulfill all that He requires\r\nin the way of obedience to His will, immediately our needs would be supplied, our desires fulfilled, our prayers answered.\r\nThere is much truth in this belief, and yet it expresses only one\r\n\r\nside of the truth. While God lives in an eternal now, yet He works\r\nout His purposes in time. A petition presented before God is like\r\na seed dropped in, the ground. Forces above and beyond our control must work upon it till the true fruition of the answer is given.\r\n--The Still Small Voice.\r\nI longed to walk along an easy road,\r\nAnd leave behind the dull routine of home, Thinking in other fields to serve my God;\r\nBut Jesus said, \"My time has not yet come.\"\r\nI longed to sow the seed in other soil,   To be unfettered in the work, and free, To join with other laborers in their toil;\r\nBut Jesus said, \"'Tis not My choice for thee.\"\r\nI longed to leave the desert, and be led\r\nTo work where souls were sunk in sin and shame, That I might win them; but the Master said,\r\n\"I have not called thee, publish here My name.\"\r\nI longed to fight the battles of my King,\r\nLift high His standards in the thickest strife;   But my great Captain bade me wait and sing Songs of His conquests in my quiet life.\r\nI longed to leave the uncongenial sphere,\r\nWhere all alone I seemed to stand and wait, To feel l had some human helper near,\r\nBut Jesus bade me guard one lonely gate.\r\nI longed to leave the round of daily toil,\r\nWhere no one seemed to understand or care; But Jesus said, \"I choose for thee this soil,\r\nThat thou might'st raise for Me some blossoms rare.\"\r\nAnd now I have no longing but to do\r\nAt home, or else afar, His blessed will, To work amid the many or the few;\r\nThus, \"choosing not to choose,\" my heart is still. --Selected.\r\n\"And Patience was willing to wait.\" --Pilgrim's Progress.",1783499793824]