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I. WHAT IS IMPLIED IN WAITING FOR GOD.

1. God has work for us, and we should be ready to do it.

2. There are blessings to bestow, and we should be waiting to receive them. The fountain is flowing; let us go out and drink of it. God blesses His people not according to their worth, but according to their wants; and in proportion as you feel your parchedness, and look that it may be allayed, so will be the shower that descends from these clouds which are big with mercies.

3. In waiting for God we should wait His time. For as to certain services which He requires and rewards which He bestows, there is need that we exercise patience. He who is conscious that he deserves nothing, and that he needs much, will feel as if God were not exacting anything unreasonable in making him wait. He who knows how much is promised, and how certainly it will be granted in proper season, will be delighted to wait.

4. Waiting for God implies sire and expectation. We are longing for the blessings, as you see the husbandman looking over the whole sky for the coming shower to refresh his crops, or for the signs of dry weather to enable him to gather in his grain; as you have seen the mother in her eagerness, or the father, saying less, but not less earnest, looking out for a son or daughter who has been for years in a foreign clime, but who has promised to be at home at such a time. How is every object in the dim distance examined! how is every sound listened to! and, "Why is he so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariot?" Ah, if we were longing for spiritual blessings in this spirit, they would come, assuredly come; and our faith would insure them, and our eagerness would hasten them: for "He that shall come will come, and will not tarry."

II. HOW THE LORD ENCOURAGES THEM THAT WAIT FOR HIM.

1. It is a good thing in itself thus to wait when God so requires it. It braces and invigorates the soul, and enables it to use the means to procure the expected benefit!

2. It is good to wait, inasmuch as in waiting we receive many valuable lessons. A pupil or apprentice puts himself under a master, who promises to teach him a certain branch of knowledge. Now, it is possible that, in fulfilment of his engagement, the master may just set the learner to work, and point out service after service for him. Would the scholar be thereby justified in charging his master with a breach of promise, and saying to him, "You promised to give me instruction and skill, and you set me instead to work and toil"? We see at once that if such a spirit were cherished by the pupil, it would indicate not only that he is ignorant of the branch of knowledge he wishes to learn, but that he is labouring under a more deplorable ignorance, — that he is ignorant of his own ignorance; for it is in the very act of waiting on that master, and doing the work which he prescribes, that he is to attain the skill he is seeking. It is the same in the school of Christ.

3. The blessing is larger because we have waited for it. Why is it that man, when he has an arduous work to do, must do it when he can, and hasten to perform it? How is it that when he makes a promise he must be ready to execute it when he can, and not wait till, as he supposes, some more favourable opportunity may present itself? Plainly because his power is limited, because his time on the earth is uncertain, and if he let one opportunity slip, another may never present itself. But no such weakness is laid on the High and Holy One who "inhabiteth eternity," and with whom "one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." He can allow opportunity after opportunity, to pass away, till at last the "fit time," "the set time," "the fulness of times," comes. All is order and beneficence amidst so much complexity and seeming irregularity. Everything is happening at its most appropriate time, amid so much apparent delay and procrastination. While nothing lingers beyond its time, nothing hastens to a premature conclusion. God delays the blessing only that it may be larger when it comes. His counsels ripen slowly, that the ear may be fuller, that the fruit may be richer and mellower. How is it that the river, which rose in so small a fountain among the rugged hills, now sweeps along so magnificently among fertile plains? It is because in its lengthened and circuitous course it has gathered contributions on either side, receiving a new stream from every valley which it passed. Thus it is that the stream of God's bounty is made to turn and wind, only that it may receive contributions from every quarter as it sweeps along, and flow at length more largely into the bosom. Hence it is that the royal munificence of His bounty knows no limits at last. Thus it is that He is good to them that wait for Him.

(J. M'Cosh.)

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KJV: The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.

WEB: Yahweh is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.