I was reading some time ago the verse of Scripture in 2 Samuel 22:29, “The Lord will lighten my darkness.”
And then I found a little clipping by Francis E. Seaworth, and he’s saying, “One late afternoon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, wanting to be alone, I entered a strange cathedral and sat down amid the silence and semi-darkness.
“It was a gloomy place at that hour. Had I not known that I was in the house of God I should have not cared to be there. The windows were especially foreboding. Presently, a caretaker approached me, and thinking he wished me to leave so that he could lock up, I started to go.
“‘Oh no,’ he whispered, ‘Don’t go until the lights come on!’ So I waited. The room became darker, the shadows deepened, the windows were ugly and repelling, and I wanted so much to leave. Then suddenly the street lights came on in full and the whole scene was changed!
“Oh, what a transformation! I thought I had never seen such exquisite coloring, such heavenly suggestiveness as the windows gave forth in their wonderful coloring. Everything was enhanced with unearthly beauty that fed my soul, and I wanted to capture and keep it forever.
“Then I thought of the darkness which had shrouded many times my spirit, and how inexplicably it can vanish with the joy of the Lord coming in and His light flooding the soul. ‘The Lord will lighten my darkness!’ So I had learned a secret from that old caretaker; yes, I had! Don’t go until the lights come on! ‘Wait on the Lord, wait patiently for Him!’”1
And you know, so many times I have thought of that: “Wait till the lights come on.” You’ve often heard us say that prayer changes things, and someone wrote some time ago that prayer didn’t change things for them. “I tried it a few times and gave up.”
Later then I wrote that person and I said, “You didn’t give God time! You didn’t hold on for the answer!” Time is sometimes a very important element in getting an answer to your prayer. Someone has wisely said, “It takes a lot of time for God to grow a great big oak tree.”
There are many reasons why prayer cannot be immediately answered. I know it’s hard to understand, but some day you will. This, however, I do understand: that many times prayer would have been answered had we waited until the lights came on, just given God a chance, waited a little longer—if we hadn’t let discouragement make us give up before we had prayed through the victory!
It isn’t that God has refused to answer; it’s just that we don’t wait for the lights to come on! You know, there’s such a fixed determination in real faith, the faith that stands this test of waiting. There are those like Jacob of old who say, “I will not let thee go unless thou dost bless me.”2
Then they get down to wrestling in prayer, and they search their hearts to see if they are meeting God’s conditions. And oh, that’s so necessary. We talk so much about faith, but I’ve always tried to remember to say, “You must meet God’s conditions!” You must search your heart and search the written Word, God’s Word, until faith is strengthened! You know, God says in one place that His ear isn’t deaf and His arm is not shortened that He cannot save!3
You remember that verse we’ve quoted so many times: “If our hearts condemn us not, we have boldness to come to the throne and ask for mercy in the time of need.”4 When you just do that, and hold on, and press on regardless of every obstacle—just so the heart’s right, just so you met the conditions, and with that dogged determination—oh, so many times you’ll get through!
There may be some times, like we’ve always thought to remind you, sometimes God has to say no! But you can’t look just at the discouragement, the weariness, but just hold on, march a little longer, wait till the lights come on, hold on! God will hear, and a “little longer” spirit that fights on regardless of appearances or the discouraging voices about you, oh, it does bring results! I have tried it so many times.
I was reading today in 1 Kings Chapter 18 where Elijah sent the servant up to look towards the sea to see if there was a cloud. You know how he held on! He said to the servant, “Go again!” The servant came back, said there was nothing. “Go again,” said Elijah. He came back, there’s nothing.
And that answer kept coming all the time: nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing in sight! And seven times the servant had to go back, and the last Elijah said, “Go up and look again.” And, “Behold, there ariseth a cloud out of the sea like a man’s hand.”5 And you know the rest of the story, and how the rain came. God so wonderfully answered prayer!
You know, the Duke of Wellington, who conquered Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, said that it wasn’t that British soldiers were braver than French soldiers, but it could be that they could hold on just a little longer. The victory was determined by that waiting.
Anything wonderful can happen in just that little margin of time when you don’t give up, or when you keep on believing and keep on praying. Robert Browning said that he faced death, but he said, “One fight more and it’s going to be the best, though it is the last!”
Dr. Frederick Harris described this spirit in these words: “Often the deciding issue in any contest is not when one is outnumbered but when and where one stops fighting. The final score is determined by a struggle that is pushed just a little longer.”
It’s in that last few moments sometimes that God gives the greatest victory! George McDonald declares, “The sight of a man’s back is sometimes one of the most pathetic things; it often means that someone was in the very sight of victory when he turned around.”
But as the old hymn has it, “Almost cannot avail; almost is but to fail.” Hold on! Wait till the lights come on! God will send His light and God will give victory. He gets His greatest victories, remember, out of seeming defeats! God bless you, make you a blessing. He is still on the throne and prayer does change things.
Originally aired in the 1950s. Excerpted and republished November 2010.