A discouraged minister had the following strange dream: He thought he was standing on the top of a great granite rock, trying to break it with a pickaxe. Hour after hour he worked on, with no apparent result. At last, he said: “It is useless; I will stop.” Suddenly a man stood by him and asked: “Were you not allotted this task, and if so, why are you going to abandon it?” “My work is vain; I can make no impression on the granite.” The stranger solemnly replied: “That is nothing to you; your duty is to pick, whether the rock yield or no. The work is yours, the results are in other hands; work on.”
In his dream he saw himself setting himself anew to his labor, and at his first blow the rock flew into hundreds of pieces. This was only a dream, but it proved a valuable and never-forgotten lesson to the minister, and a means of comfort and cheer to his soul.
Would it not be well for all of us to remember that results are ever in God’s hands, and although the great wheels of His government may seem to us slow, yet His purposes will surely come to pass. He is for His people, and will bring to pass that which is for their truest interests. He never lacks for means, for “All things serve His might.”
Like the minister on the rock, our duty is to “pick on.” When God’s time has come – and He never mistakes as to the right moment – the difficulty will vanish.