Be strong and of good courage

The 8th day

Strong and of good courage

'Wait on the Lord: be strong, and let your heart take courage: yea, wait on the Lord.' – Psalm 27:14.

One of the chief needs in our waiting upon God, one of the deepest secrets of its blessedness and blessing, is a quiet, confident persuasion that it is not in vain; courage to believe that God will hear and help; that we are waiting on a God who never could disappoint His people.

Our heart may well faint and fail. Amid all these causes of fear or doubt, how blessed to hear the voice of God, Wait on the Lord! Be strong, and let your heart take courage! Yea, wait thou upon the Lord! Let nothing in heaven or earth or hell--let nothing keep you from waiting on your God in full assurance that it cannot be in vain.

If you say that you are afraid of deceiving yourself with vain hope, because you do not see or feel any warrant in your present state for such special expectations, my answer is, it is God, who is the warrant for your expecting great things. Oh, do learn the lesson. You are not going to wait on yourself to see what you feel and what changes come to you. You are going to WAIT ON GOD, to know first, WHAT HE IS, and then, after that, what He will do. The whole duty and blessedness of waiting on God has its root in this, that He is such a blessed Being, full, to overflowing, of goodness and power and life and joy, that we, however wretched, cannot for any time come into contact with Him, without that life and power secretly, silently beginning to enter into us and blessing us. God is Love!

By Andrey Murray