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「我呼叫他，他卻不回答。」（聖經雅歌五章 6 節）
神常喜歡在賜給我們信心以後，用遲延的方法來試煉我們的信心，祂常容忍祂的僕人們大聲呼喊著，卻不去回答他們。他們推著門，門卻依然絲毫不動，好似門節上長滿了鐵銹一般。他們常常像耶利米一樣哀呼：「你以黑雲遮蔽自己，以至禱告不得透入。」（聖經耶利米哀歌三章 44 節）
很多忠信的聖徒都曾持久不變地耐心等候著，可是他們還沒有得到答覆，這並不是因為他們的禱告不夠迫切，也不是他們的禱告不蒙悅納，乃是神喜歡這樣 ── 神是天地的主，祂可以按照祂自己的意旨賜恩給我們。如果祂喜歡讓我們忍耐經過試煉，為什麼不可以呢？
沒有一個禱告會虛耗。我們的禱告神從來不會不答應或者不注意；有很多事情我們以為被拒絕了，其實， 只是遲延罷了。── 彭納（H. Bonar）
主有時延遲祂的救助，為著要試煉我們的信心，催促我們的祈禱。船被波浪掩沒了，耶穌卻仍睡著；但是在 船沉以前，祂自然會醒過來的。祂睡是睡，卻從來不會睡過度；在祂沒有「太遲了」的事情的。── 馬克拉倫（ Alexander Maclaren）
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"I called upon him, but he gave me no answer."(S. of Sol. 5:6.)
THE Lord, when He hath given great faith, hath been known to try it by long delayings. He has suffered His servants' voices to echo in their ears as from a brazen sky. They have knocked at the golden gate, but it has remained unmovable, as though it were rusted upon its hinges. Like Jeremiah, they have cried, "Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through." Thus have true saints continued long in patient waiting without reply, not because their prayers were not vehement, nor because they were unaccepted, but because it so pleased Him who is a Sovereign, and who gives according to His own pleasure. If it pleases Him to bid our patience exercise itself, shall he not do as He will with His own!
No prayer is lost. Praying breath was never spent in vain. There is no such thing as prayer unanswered or unnoticed by God, and some things that we count refusals or denials are simply delays. --- H. Bonar.
Christ sometimes delays His help that He may try our faith and quicken our prayers. The boat may be covered with the waves, and He sleeps on; but He will wake up before it sinks.
He sleeps, but He never oversleeps; and there are no "too lates" with Him. --- Alexander Maclaren.
Be still, sad soul! lift thou no passionate cry,
But spread the desert of thy being bare
To the full searching of the All-seeing eye;
Wait! and through dark misgiving, black despair,
God will come down in pity, and fill the dry
Dead place with light, and life, and vernal air.
─J. C. Shairp.
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