Bread Crumbs – Devotions for Life

If God is slow in coming, wait!

He is on His way!

He will be right on time! (1)

There are times when we endure want, need, loneliness, absence, and pain. In these times we are likely to cry out to God either questioning His absence or demanding His presence with us.

During these difficult seasons we may be surrounded by Christian friends, immersed in the Word, and receiving compassionate care from our Pastor, yet we find these gifts of grace inadequate.  While each is valuable, none of them satisfy our deep longing for God Himself.

For these difficult times, this analogy by Hannah Smith is most helpful:

If a child cries, its father does not always go himself at first, but waits to see if it will quiet down without him.  If it continues to cry, he may send someone else in the family to comfort it, or give it something to cheer it up, and if it is satisfied with this, he himself may not have to take care of it himself.  But if it still continues to cry for its father and will not be satisfied with anything else, then that the father himself goes and takes care of the child and lets it know his love. (2)

God has provided for our comfort.  He frequently uses others and His Word to bring us comfort and hope during trials and seasons of suffering.

Through these instruments of His peace, God woos us to Himself.  In the darkness and through the maze of confusion, God draws us to Him in our time of need.  

Yet, if we cannot find our way to Him, He will come to us.

The only way to live an abundant life is to depend upon God, to live by His side, and not to let worldly comforts become the source of your comfort.  

So often, we are miserable, not because God has abandoned us, but because we seek comfort from a world which cannot provide it.

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. … 

When God is with me … 

He comforts me … (3)  

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1. Habakkuk 2:3.  Exegetical note: I have revised this verse by replacing the impersonal pronoun it with God. Habakkuk is waiting on a Word from God.  God promises that His vision, i.e., Himself, will come.

2. Hannah Whitall Smith and Melvin Easterday Dieter, The Christian’s Secret of a Holy Life : The Unpublished Personal Writings of Hannah Whitall Smith (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

3. Psalm 23:1 and 4

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