“我呼叫他，他却不回答。”（歌5章5节）

　　神常常喜欢在赐给我们信心以后，用迟延的方法来试炼我们的信心，他常常容忍他的仆人们大声呼喊着，却不去回答他们。他们推着门，门却依然丝毫不动，好似门键上长满了铁锈一般。他们常像耶利米一样哀呼：“你以黑云遮蔽自己，以至祷告不得透入。”（哀3章44节）

　　许多忠信的圣徒都曾持久不变地耐心等候，可是他们还没有得到答复，这并不是因为他们的祷告不够迫切，也不是他们的祷告不蒙悦纳，乃是神喜欢这样！神是天地的主，他可以按照他自己的意旨赐恩给我们。如果他喜欢让我们忍耐经过试炼，为什么不可以呢？

　　没有一个祷告会虚耗。我们的祷告神从来不会不答应或者不注意；有许多事情我们以为被拒绝了，实在，只是迟延罢了。——彭纳(H.Bonar）

　　主有时延迟他的救助，为着要试炼我们的信心，催促我们的祈祷。船被波浪掩盖了，耶稣却仍睡着；但是在船沉以前，他自然会醒过来的。他睡是睡，却从来不会睡过度；在他没有“太迟了”的事情的。——马克拉伦（Alexander Maclaren）

"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.