Learning to Wait

Dear Girls,

Just thought I would share my devotions and thoughts with you this morning. I was reading in The Hidden Life:

“Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”* (Colossians 3:3) As the solemn chimes of the village curfew bell reverberate among the hills, announcing to all the close of another day and the bringing in of another night; so from out of this text comes pealing the deep and sacred sound, “Death—life; death—life,” which, reverberating along the corridors of time, announces to every Christian heart the close of a life of sin and the beginning of a life with God. Here is a mystery, O ye saints. Ye are both dead and alive. This inspired writer in another place says, “She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.”* (1 Timothy 5:6)

[Charles E. Orr; The Hidden Life, “The Hidden Life”]

I thank the Lord that He came to this earth as a babe, endured the physical strains of this earthly life, and then did the ultimate—died on the cross, that we can have this hidden well-spring of living water in our hearts today.

The Christian life is such a blessed life in comparison to the sinner’s life! The devil paints the world’s ways as so bright and gay, oh, so attractive to the flesh, but oh, so deceptive. Truly the scripture is true, “The wages of sin is death.”* (Romans 6:23) In a recent conversation with my parents, I learned that a cousin three years older than myself whom I grew up with has been living with a man (2nd marriage) who has been verbally abusive to her. He has now left her and filed for divorce. She was a very beautiful girl. We went to Sunday school together. We visited in each others homes. We showed each other our hope chest things. She had a desire to live right, got saved, and we enjoyed each others company very much. She graduated from high school, got a job and an apartment. The world had such a strong pull. The devil knows how to tempt each of us in our weak areas. She lost out with God, started wearing make-up. She met a young man and they fell in love and were planning to be married. At that point an evangelist came to our congregation. The Lord dealt with her, and one night she asked me to go to the altar with her. Oh, the struggle was so hard! God was pulling on her heart; He saw the future and a life of heartache ahead, and wanted to spare her this misery. But you know what she said there at the altar? “I can’t give him up! I can’t give him up!” She knew it was against God’s word for saved persons to marry unsaved. After much prayer and counseling from the minister she professed to get saved. After service she opened up her purse and gave me all her make-up and asked me to burn it, which I promptly did the next day. But it proved to not be a heart-felt change. She went back and went ahead and married her fiance. Later she divorced him, and married another man. Her husband was very hurt and disappointed. He thought he had a good girl from a Christian home. I really believe he would have gotten saved too, if she would have yielded her whole heart and ways to God. Her vision was so limited. She felt he would not have her if she were living for God. But the Lord could have dealt with his heart, too.

Truly the Christian life is a hidden life. It’s joys are hidden from the world. If folks don’t seek, they don’t find the greater joys and pleasures of living for the Lord. My cousin has surely had a hard life and my heart goes out to her. In my youth I prayed for God to stretch out His mercy to her. My burden to pray has been renewed since hearing her latest situation. When God can’t get ahold of individual hearts when they are young to spare them heartache, then it seems that after the ways of the world prove out miserable and wretched that they can see the Lord’s ways are so much better.

I have just been thanking the Lord for helping me to choose Him completely in my youth and wait on the Lord for a companion. It surely pays! I was 29 before I married and the wait seemed so long then, but now it seems like nothing! I am so glad I waited on God. The girls I went to Sunday school with got married. Even my own sister, who was four years younger than I, got married. It just seemed I was going to be left out. But God knew what was best for me. Since I have been married, I know the waiting was important. The Lord taught me a lot about waiting during my single days.

It seems you’re doing nothing. But one day God communicated to me that waiting was just what He wanted me to do!

Thank the Lord. I was in His will—doing just what He had planned for me! Have you heard this song? We trust it will be a blessing to you.

The service of Jesus true pleasure affords,
In Him there is joy without an alloy;
’Tis Heaven to trust Him and rest on His words;
It pays to serve Jesus each day.

It pays to serve Jesus whate’er may betide,
It pays to be true whate’er you may do;
’Tis riches of mercy in Him to abide;
It pays to serve Jesus each day.

Though sometimes the shadows may hang o’er the way,
And sorrows may come to beckon us home,
Our precious Redeemer each toil will repay;
It pays to serve Jesus each day.

Refrain:

It pays to serve Jesus, it pays every day,
It pays every step of the way,
Though the pathway to glory may sometimes be drear,
You’ll be happy each step of the way.*

Be encouraged, dear girls, God has a plan for you. Keep close to Him.

With Christian love,
Sister Elois Spinks