Take Time
Being rash and hasty is a weakness common to us all.
To rush forward in our thinking, speaking, and doing, demonstrates a lack of faith in God, and how little we perceive His presence and dominion over all things. It is true in a thousand different things that “he that believeth shall not make haste.” (Isaiah 28:16) To act prematurely is a characteristic of infancy; it shows an immaturity of the mind. Hence, one of the lessons which we learn more and more as we become intimately acquainted with God, is the celestial art of walking slow. Or rather, walking in step with God, which may seem slow by our standards (2 Peter 3:9). But this moving slowly with God is not laziness, nor tardiness. It is the very best expression of zeal, which is a watchful promptness to God’s timing.
Ironically, being moved by an over-hasty spirit will actually cause us to fall behind God’s schedule. Whereas the most perfect vigilance, which keeps its eye ever on God, and moves with Him in the present moment, is too watchful to be rash, and too prompt to be over-hasty. To learn how to take time will introduce the soul into a whole world of progress in spiritual life.
We must take time to pray. The greatest lack of Christian life today, even among people professing holiness, is a lack of taking time for deep, thoughtful, exhaustive prayer. That is, taking time to pray any subject out in all its details before the Lord, taking time to put our whole heart and mind fervently in the prayer, and taking time for the Holy Spirit to speak to us in the depths of our spirit and reveal to us the will of God.
If all the time Christians spend in anxiety, or in seeking advice from other people, or in foolish
speculation, or in making plans and building air castles, was rather spent in patient and thoughtful prayer, what vast fields of satisfactory light and clear divine guidance would be opened up to them. They would learn God’s will along every needed line, such as would give a deep, restful assurance that would greatly increase their stature in Christ. If ministers and evangelists, who have been called to give their time to soul-saving, would spend much time each day in prayer to God, they would gain more light on divine things, and a brighter range of scriptural knowledge, and an interior vision into God’s creation and providence, which all the universities of earth could never impart. They would also obtain a depth of sweetness of experience which would make them channels of divine life to other souls.
It is amazing how little time even ministers, yes, even holiness preachers, spend in secret prayer. This is because we foolishly imagine that we have so many other things to attend to that we cannot take time to pray. But someday we may find that time was the raw gold, and that prayer was the mint in which moments were coined into heavenly wealth.
We must take time to prepare for our work. As a general rule, the greater the work we are to do, the longer the preparation God gives us for it. How eager human nature is to get into an enterprise, or a field of work, before there is a thorough preparation. To be prepared for a great mission involves a great deal more than to go through a school or to learn a trade or to pass a good examination. The preparation must go deeper, and enter into the very qualities of the heart and will. There must be the patient endurance, the breadth of perception, the quickness and sweep of mental vision, the balancing of the judgment, the impartiality of decision, and a largeness of divine gentleness for those with whom we deal. It is an inexpressible preparation which oftentimes nothing but suffering, or lonely sorrow, or years of patient waiting can develop in us.
What a world of knowledge we learn from God by studying how He deals with His creation, and with His servants, in the time consumed in preparing them for His purposes. Volumes could be written on this. He was eighty years training Moses for the work of forty. John the Baptist was thirty years preparing for the work of two; and our Lord Jesus, God made flesh, was thirty years getting ready for the ministry of three. And from the brief account in the Bible, it seems to have been the life mission of good old Simeon to hold the infant Jesus a few moments in his arms, and pronounce a glorious prophecy over him. A lifetime had been spent preparing for these few moments.
What we call preparation for a life work is often so utterly human, and so stuffed with man-made theories, as to be a positive hindrance to the Holy Ghost. A good preparation, according to God’s idea, involves many things beyond the grasp of our thought. A short life work, with a thorough, divine preparation behind it, will accomplish more than a work of many years with only a human qualification to carry it.
We should take time to keep recollected in God. That is, to recollect who we are, where we are, what we are doing, and to keep before the mind the divine presence. This will cause us to move quietly and slowly, keeping pace with God’s will. It will give us poise of soul, calmness amid all circumstances, sweetness of spirit amid many provocations. It will prevent us from uttering rash words, or forming harsh judgments, or giving too quick decisions, or by any impetuosity breaking the beautiful flow of the Holy Spirit through our hearts.
Let us review our experience: how often have we made a purchase, or written a letter, or gave a decision, or uttered a rebuke, or in a prayer or conversation expressed thoughts just a little too soon. Whereas, if we had been perfectly dead to all our impetuosity, and in deep, quiet union with God had taken time to move gently and slowly with His will, almost infinitely better results would have been accomplished.
Who among us are learning the art of walking slow in God’s time?