Waiting

“ Alas, all that he had to do was to go back to the silent house, to meet and go through that awful day of waiting—that day in which nothing can be begun or done—in which all is waiting, in which every hour seems a whole day, although one would give one’s life to prolong that which this endless steady slow succession of flying moments is carrying away. ”

“ When the waiting is all accomplished, and the deathly shadows lift,
And glory is given for grieving, and the surety of God for doubt.
We may find the waiting bitter, and count the silence long,
God knoweth we are dust, and he pitieth our pain;
And when faith has grown to fulness, and the silence changed to song,
We shall eat the fruit of patience, and shall hunger not again. ”

“ It is but to wait till I am called to work.”
“The waiting is harder than the work,” replied Wilfred, again laying down his pen. “If thou be well assured that waiting is thy work, wit thou that ’tis matter worthy of the wits of angels, for there is no work harder than to wait for God.” ”

“ And out of that waiting rises the thing we demand. It hears us calling. It is coming. It is there always, under the ashes of past hopes, never dead, always burning, a light. Keep heart. Keep faith. Do not kill the little spark. After all the years we have waited, can we not wait in faith a little longer?"
Before the roar of applause ceased, Jean and Gregory were out on the sidewalk. ”

“ I sometimes think the waiting time may not be much longer for her now; it seems, at times, as if a gleam of glory from the Heavenly City were shining on her face, and I tremble as I think that the gates may even now be opening to let her in. I tremble for ourselves, and for all those whom she helps, and teaches, and comforts ”

“ The long, lonely hours of waiting, the longing dread to hear the stumbling footsteps, the tortures of fear, the vile abuse, the bitter cursings heaped upon her head, the vain regrets, the puny hopes of a better life born but to be strangled by the next night's waiting agony, the gradual benumbing, crushed feeling that life was made but for suffering—shall I tell of this? ”

“ For delay there was, though of a few hours only; and this delay was caused by my uncomfortable new habit—pausing for the guidance and the "thrill." Intuition, waiting upon the thrill of Beauty that guided it, at first lay inactive. ”

“ Wait, wait, thou active soul,—even in thy most vigorous activity let thy work be one of waiting, and of great patience in thy fiercest toil. There will come a day of triumph, when the fresh wind will banish the heat, and fan the laurel on thy brow. ”

“ And Eden bloom again below.
We heard, and we began to wait:
Full soon that message men forgot;
Yet waiting is their destined lot,
And waiting for they know not what
They strive with yearnings passionate. ”

“ It is [p. 330] waiting—it is not a passive loitering; but carries with it the idea of earnest expectation and desire. And so while God waits, He plies you with warm entreaties and loving invitations, with stern threatenings and glowing promises; He seeks to win you by the shadow as well as the sunshine which He throws alternately across your path. “God waiting?” you ask. Why does He wait? Can He not subdue sinners by His power and compel them to serve His purpose, as the potter moulds the plastic clay? You forget that you are a free agent. Spirit is not matter. ”

“ It is only with the idle and lazy that time lags and creeps slowly along. How the minutes crawl while one is waiting without anything to do—they seem to lengthen themselves out in the most extraordinary manner. ”

“ I have been waiting for the winter and waiting for the spring; waiting for the night and waiting for the morning; waiting and dawdling and dreaming, until the day is almost spent and the twilight close at hand. ”

“ To such a waiting ear—and, brethren, it is waiting—come through the missionary press the tidings of opportunity, the sound of doors, long closed, creaking on their hinges as they fling open for the feet of the delaying messengers of grace. ”

“ Waiting is the hapless peasant
For his guest on the appointed day.
In the morning the weather changes
And at night the storm arrives,
And the dead man is ever knocking
By the window, and at the gates. ”

“ Within you the waiting still remains alive. You must put the axe to the root. Become as an automaton in this world, as one dead though seemingly alive. Never reach out after a tempting fruit, if there is to be the shortest waiting for it. ”

“ You talk of the misery of waiting. Is it not because you have as yet known no misery? Have not all men to wait who look for success in life?—to work, and wait, and bide their time? Your present work is, I know, too hard. In whatever you do, you have too much enthusiasm. ”

“ Every such prayer must be answered; but we must wait God’s time and way. The finest fruit of the Spirit ripens the latest; the longer we have to wait for answers to our prayers, the richer the blessing we are blessed while we continue to pray; faith grows by waiting; the blessing is full when it comes, and the time of the answer is seen to be the right time. ”

“ One by one, she often watched the neighboring lights go out, and human sounds grow still. When the phantom-peopled dark closed around her companionless hours, then would come the frightful waiting—in the watches of the night. ”

“ And there is nothing that so unpleasantly grips the mind and the imagination, and causes the heart occasionally to miss a beat, as that tense waiting, waiting, waiting which accompanies a premonition of impending evil or danger—born of no one knows what—which comes to one with sudden awakening in pitch darkness and amid strange surroundings. ”

“ So they wait—and by and by their waiting will be over, for the kindly tide will rise and bear them safely out on its strong bosom to some place—where they will find not more rest but blessed activity! We know there is another world, because we need it so badly to set this one right! ”

“ I cannot tell any one what I have been through in these days of waiting. I only know it has been like a terrible dream—like those dreams that make the perspiration come out on the forehead with the struggle to wake or cry out or toss the smothering thing from off a body’s lungs and heart. And till now, in spite of all, I have been faithful enough to my trust.
I have turned away all the visitors that came. I have gone each morning to my mistress’s door for orders that were spoken through the panels. ”

“ When we bring our questions to GOD, do we not sometimes either go on to offer some other petition, or leave the closet without waiting for replies? Does not this seem to show little expectation of an answer, and little desire for one? Should we like to be treated so? Quiet waiting before God would save from many a mistake and from many a sorrow. ”

“ But wait how? wait affirming or denying? active or passive? Is it possible to wait without adopting an attitude? Is not waiting itself an attitude, an acting on the assumption that it is good to wait? ”

“ It has seemed that long even to me waiting opportunity for service, yet 'tis scarcely eight hours since you were hurled into yonder hole. See; the sun in the sky tells the story truly. But every moment we delay only serves to increase our peril of discovery. Assist me, if you have strength, to relay this stone slab. ”

“ I can wait: waiting and patience mean nothing to the eternal. I gave the woman the greatest of gifts: curiosity. By that her seed has been saved from my wrath; for I also am curious; and I have waited always to see what they will do tomorrow. ”

“ I am to wait, though waiting so be hell, Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well. ”

“ When a particularly unpleasant event has long been hanging over one's head, sure to come at some time, though the precise date is unknown, people of a certain disposition find it quite possible to live on pretty comfortably through the waiting time. But when at length the date is fixed, when you know that that which you dread will happen upon such and such a day, then the waiting begins all at once to seem intolerable. The vague date had been awaited calmly, but the certain date is awaited with a wearing anxiety which tells fearfully on physical strength. ”

“ All my life I have been planning and hoping and thinking and dreaming and loitering and waiting. All my life I have been getting ready to begin to do something worth the while. I have been waiting for the summer and waiting for the fall ”

“ There is deliverance in spirit before there is deliverance in outward fact. If our patient waiting bring, as it certainly will bring, at the right time, an answer in the removal of danger, and the lightening of sorrow, it will bring first the better answer, 'the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,' to keep your hearts and minds. That is the highest blessing we have to seek for in our waiting on God, and that is the blessing which we get as soon as we wait on Him. ”

“ Waiting—lingering over their breakfast, glancing often and anxiously through the open door and frequently going out to scan the clearing from side to side and from end to end—waiting, they hardly knew for what,—in the early morning the young settlers began to find time hanging heavily on their hands. ”

“ 'I can imagine few things more trying to the patience than the long wasted days of waiting. ”

“ Consider him that waits for a crop of corn; and will not you wait for a crown of glory? If you should be called to wait a little longer than the husbandman does, is it not something proportionably greater and infinitely more worth your waiting for? ”

“ Everywhere in nature we are taught the lessons of patience and waiting. We want things a long time before we get them, and the fact that we wanted them a long time makes them all the more precious when they come. ”

“ The Intermediate Life is not a state of sleep, but a waiting time. But is it a time of mere waiting, and of unemployed quiescence? This would be no better than sleep. There must be a reason for the waiting. And what other reason can there be than that, during it, there is something to be done which can only be done then? S. Paul speaks, in the text, of work which he is confident will be carried on till it is brought to completion on the Day of Judgment. ”

“ Some women get used to waiting. I think [Pg 166] that those who do have closed the doors of their hearts to the keener range of feeling, having suffered so much that they say to themselves, “Here, I’ll suffer no longer.” There are yet others who pass through the pain of waiting, going by this thorny, bleeding, silent road of doubt and pain to a higher acquiescence. ”

“ His waiting is not a substitute for ours, but because He watches therefore we should watch. We say, we expect Him to comfort and help us—well, are we standing, as it were, on tiptoe, with empty hands upraised to bring them a little nearer the gifts we look for? Are our 'eyes ever towards the Lord'? ”

“ The discipline of waiting will sharpen your wits, which is important, as I mean to honor you with considerable responsibility and leave you here when I depart, which will be tonight as dewy eve spreads her sparkling robe—"
"Leave me here! My God, man, I'm not going to be stranded in this wilderness! You've lost your senses if you think you can shake me now and leave me to get pinched and do time for your foolishness!" ”

“ Even if I just know it's bad, I believe I can wait—if you haven't time now.'
'I haven't time, at all, now,' Mrs. Despard replied very sweetly. 'I can only give you two minutes—my dressmaker's waiting. But it isn't bad,' she added. ”

“ Blessed are those servants who, after having waited long, continue in a waiting frame, until the hour that their Lord comes, and are then found awake and aware of his first approach, of his first knock ”

“ Brandon, and his sisters, the two Misses Brandon, are posed about the drawing-room, waiting. Waiting is always a painful process, from the modified form of suffering involved in the ten minutes before dinner, when every man's tongue is tied, and his wits congealed by the frost of expectant hunger ”

“ We should aim at cheerful and willing waiting: anything else is a falling short; if we examine into it, we shall see that pining savours of unwillingness and discontent—there is in it something of the spirit of the servant who designs to give notice of leaving. ”

“ How much of human life is lost in waiting! ”

“ To what profit we could use the time for our present task that we spend in impatient waiting and wondering over the future! So often the future is just one step up from the present, but some of us miss it by preferring to wait for an elevator. ”

“ So life goes on from day to day. We are waiting, waiting. The little boot-maker in his shop is waiting. The tailor is waiting. The hotel staffs are waiting. The passengers on the rail-way platforms are waiting. On the surface life is gay and free from care ”

“ They shorten in passing whenever we are so fully occupied with their content as not to note the actual time itself. A day full of excitement, with no pause, is said to pass 'ere we know it.' On the contrary, a day full of waiting, of unsatisfied desire for change, will seem a small eternity. ”