There is no music in a rest, but there is the making of music in it. In our whole life's melody the music is broken off here and there by rests, and we foolishly lament.

God sends a time of forced leisure, sickness, disappointed plans, frustrated efforts, and makes a sudden pause in the music He delights in.

How does the musician read the rests? See him beating time with unvarying count, catching up the next note true and steady as if no breaking time had come in between.

Not without design does God write the music of every Christian life. Be it ours to learn the time, and not to be dismayed at the rests. They are not to be slurred over, not to be omitted, not to destroy the melody, not to change the keynote. If we look up, God Himself will beat time for us. With the eye on Him we shall strike the next note full and clear. If we say to ourselves, "There is no music in a rest," let us always remember there is the making of music in it.

The making of music is often a slow and painful process in this life. How patiently God works to teach us. It is sometimes through pain and weariness and the loss of all things that the music is perfected—the music of singing and making melody in our hearts unto the Lord.

—Selected