In plain words
‘God gives the wind and puts out the lamp! What justice is this?’ he thinks. But for everything, human effort is most necessary for you. ‘I gave air for you to keep your life going. I gave light: I gave the lamp so that you might not fall into a pit in the darkness called Ajñāna and come to many troubles. To the wind I gave only the power to blow. To the lamp I gave only the power to burn. But if the blowing wind comes and puts out the burning lamp, My own power is found wanting.’ That is the law of nature. The wind must blow as the wind does! The lamp must burn as the lamp does! But with human effort you must set a glass round it so that it does not go out. That is human effort. If, without setting that round it, you say, ‘O wind! You must not put out my lamp,’ is that not wrong! It goes very much against Prakṛti itself. It goes against everything God has created. To this God does not agree in the least. But when the sufferings of devotees go somewhat beyond bounds, when the devotee's mind comes to a good state, when their prayers rise from the heart, God Himself appears before them and removes their sufferings.
God can do anything in a single moment
You may have read it in the Bhāgavata. There was a time when Indra poured down a great rain. It is natural for rain to fall. The Gopīs and the cowherd boys all gathered round Kṛṣṇa. ‘Kṛṣṇa! Save us! Save our cows! We cannot bear this suffering, we cannot live,’ they prayed. Then Kṛṣṇa said, ‘The rain cannot be stopped. It is My own creation! It must fall! But through prayer there are some means of escaping it. Just because I have the power, it is not possible to stop it. Then it would be as though I had violated My own power. So come! I shall lift Mount Govardhana. Take shelter under it. The rain cannot be stopped.’ When Kṛṣṇa went to lift the Govardhana hill in this way, doubt at once began in the cowherds' minds, as human minds will.