Song of Solomon 5:6

Prayer sometimes waits, like a petitioner at the gate, until the King comes out to grant her the blessings that she seeks. The Lord, when He has given great faith, has been known to test it with long delays. He has allowed His servants’ voices to echo in their ears as if from a sky of brass.

They have knocked at the golden gate, but it has remained unmoved, as if it were rusted shut on its hinges. Like Jeremiah, they have cried, “Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through” (Lamentations 3:44). In this way, true saints have continued long in patient waiting without reply—not because their prayers were not fervent, nor because they were unaccepted, but because it pleased Him who is a Sovereign and who gives according to His own good pleasure.

If it pleases Him to require our patience to be exercised, shall He not do as He wills with what is His own? Beggars must not be choosers regarding time, place, or form. But we must be careful not to mistake delays in prayer for denials: God’s long-dated bills will be punctually honored. We must not allow Satan to shake our confidence in the God of truth by pointing to our unanswered prayers.

Unanswered petitions are not unheard. God keeps a file for our prayers—they are not blown away by the wind; they are treasured in the King’s archives. This is a registry in the court of heaven in which every prayer is recorded. Tested believer, your Lord has a tear-bottle in which the costly drops of sacred grief are stored, and a book in which your holy groanings are numbered.

Eventually, your plea will prevail. Can you not be content to wait a little? Will not your Lord’s time be better than your time? Eventually He will appear, bringing comfort, to your soul’s joy, and will cause you to put away the sackcloth and ashes of long waiting, and to put on the scarlet and fine linen of full fruition.