waiting for mercy

Waiting for Mercy, 2 Samuel 7:15, from Beside Still Waters by C. H. Spurgeon 

The old proverb says:

No sweat, no sweet:
No pains, no gains:
No mill, no meal.

It is the same in heavenly things. God's usual rule is to make us pray before He gives the blessing and to make us fervently pray before great mercies are given. When God makes us knock at mercy's gate, it is a great blessing. When we plead with God and have not realized success, we become more earnest and more intent and our hunger increases. If we obtained the blessing when we first asked, we would not have a sense of mercy's value. Standing outside mercy's gate, we grow more passionately earnest in our pleading. First we ask, then we seek, and finally we plead with cries, tears, and a broken heart.

I never would have been able to comfort anguished seekers if I myself had not been kept waiting for mercy. I have always felt grateful for distress because of the results afterward. Many saints whose experiences are published could never have written those books if they had not waited hungry and thirsty and full of soul sorrow. The spade of agony digs deep trenches to hold the water of life.

If the ships of prayer do not speedily return, it is because they are heavily loaded with blessings. When prayer is not immediately answered, it will be all the sweeter when the answer arrives. Prayer, like fruit, is ripened by hanging longer on the tree.

If you knock with a heavy heart, you will soon sing with the joy of the Spirit. Therefore, do not be discouraged because the door is still closed.


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i really enjoyed this entry in the beside still waters devotional. so often i feel like i am waiting and i pray and pray and still receive no apparent answer. the lord is definitely teaching me patience during this season (and probably will in every season following.. haha.). patience to wait on things in my own life, but also things in my friend's lives. i need to continually remind myself that it is good for me to feel like i can't control life, either for myself or my friend, because i can't. God is in control and we wouldn't want it any other way. He may put things in our lives, and in the lives of people we love, that we would have never chosen for us or them. but i must keep reminding myself that there is a purpose in these things even if i can not see them and that through trusting the Lord and walking each day out for Him (whether i know what direction He is leading me in or not) that He is good and has a plan in all of it - for our joy and His glory.

on a lighter note- i leave tomorrow to go to maryland with friends to see mumford & sons in concert. this will be a nice trip to help me relax from a rather exhausting first half of this week. i'm really looking forward to it.

also - i really wanna see this movie.




to end i'll leave you with one of my favorite mumford & sons song - "little lion man". have a good rest of the week!