In his devotional, Victorious Living, E. Stanley Jones quotes the words of someone who said that in the field of music, “pauses are music in the making.” We know that songs have pauses; we can’t sing from beginning to end without pauses. But pauses are not only for us to take a breath; it is also a suspense “to produce music more lovely than before.” The pause “prepares everyone for finer music.”

In Caesarea, Paul the apostle had to spend two years in prison, not knowing the outcome of his court proceedings, much less when or if he would ever be released. It was a pause in his life; but as Stanley
Jones points out, it’s to prepare him for the fine plan of God. Moses had a longer pause—40 years in Midian—before God sent him to deliver Israel from Egyptian’s bondage. David also spent dozens of years in a long pause living as a fugitive before he became a king.

Some pauses are long, some are short; what is almost certain is that we who are in the plan of God must experience it. But not everyone will have the privilege to hear the “finer music” that comes after the
pause; some will go without ever hearing the first note. However, here is the good news: We all shall hear the fine music in heaven when we get to see what the pause was for. It’s for His good will.

Toward the latter part of her life, Amy Carmichael, a missionary to India from England, suffered severe neuralgia that made her fingers almost immovable. One day she asked her nurse whether she would ever be able to move her fingers again. Her nurse replied, maybe not. Amy Carmichael, then, said, “I gave that hand to the Lord for Him to use and now He has taken it again.” Since then, no more writing, only dictation; after 53 years of ministry her fingers went on a pause. But one day God will press the play button.

Pastor Paul