They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (Isaiah 40:30) Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord. (Psalm 27:14) Love is patient; love is kind (I Corinthians 13:4 NIV)
So, often in our Christian walk, God bids us to wait upon Him. There are promises throughout scripture for strength, victory, peace and even joy as we learn to wait upon God in the midst of any circumstance. There was a time that I would have said, “God, please let me just skip this lesson on patience. It is not one that I am going to ever learn, so can we move on to something else?” Yet, God knew that this was a lesson which is vital to both my faith and my ability to love Him as I should. Patience while waiting is both an act of faith and an act of love toward God.
As I wrote in the last post, I arrived into Columbia with great anticipation of all that God was going to do. He had moved rapidly in preparing my move. Mountains were flattened and laid at my feet. After I arrived, there was the bitterest cold winter with snow fall after snow fall. Each day I would carefully, cautiously make my way safely to work in my car not made for snow. The short sale on my house in Florida had come to a standstill. The applications for a second job only ended in closed doors. For the first time in all of my career, I was being turned down for a job. Financially it was tough on a part time job. Certainly God knew this. So, I opted to have no cable, kept my house at the bare minimum of heating while wearing layers of clothes to keep warm, and did everything I could to survive financially. At the end of each month I rejoiced that I made it. I never failed to tithe and God would stretch the remainder of the money.
Continue reading “How Is Patience a Wonderful Demonstration of Love?”