The Delayed Chariot: God's Tarrying and Eternal Purpose

"Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariots?" This cry of Sisera's mother—hoping yet half-despairing—echoes through the hearts of multitudes in the stern fight of existence and the moral campaign of consecrated life. When Elohim tarries in His pavilion of cloud, withholding both Himself and His blessings, our hearts struggle and our lips quiver with wondering desire to know the reason why.

God stays not from us because, like Sisera, He is a dismounted general and slain warrior; men fall, but He never. He always has a sublime design in His tarrying—a good and satisfactory reason for His delay, which He does not always make known, but leaves us to spell out for ourselves. He tarries to do us good, not to taunt; to check our impatience and correct our hurrying spirit, not to discourage or distress.

The Church militant, for nearly nineteen centuries, has breathed the prayer commanded by her Founder—"Thy kingdom come." In her longing after complete victory and universal regeneration, when truth and peace shall sway in every land and the Christ-King shall be enthroned in every heart, she plaintively ejaculates: "Why is His chariot so long in coming?" Yet slowness of progress is no proof of failure. Are not the greatest works of Elohim the result of slow processes? The corn does not wave in golden harvests after a night and a day's growth. His coming shall be as the morning—fresh, fragrant, and radiant.