I had an experience one night about a week ago. I’m not sure if you would really call it a dream, but it was while I was sleeping. It seemed like it lasted all night long. It was an audible voice, repeatedly quoting scripture throughout the night. I woke up quoting the scripture I had heard repeating in my dream state.
The scripture is found in James 1:4.
But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing.
The word, let, in the Strong’s Concordance, means to hold one’s self to a thing, to lay hold of a thing, to adhere or cling to, to be closely joined to a person or a thing.
The word, patience, means, cheerful (or hopeful) endurance, constancy, enduring, patience, patient continuance (waiting).
The word, perfect, means wanting nothing necessary to completeness, perfect.
The word, work, means to finish, to perform, accomplish, achieve, to work out, to bring about results of a thing.
The word, entire, means complete in all its parts, in no part wanting or unsound, complete, entire, whole, a body without blemish or defect, free from sin and fault, complete in all respects.
As I dug into the meaning of the words in this scripture, I was first convicted. I had to ask myself if I was truly CHEERFULLY enduring, CHEERFULLY continuing to trust God. I must admit, I am not always cheerful in the waiting. That was the first thing I had to change in myself – to choose from this day forward to wait upon the Lord to manifest His promises cheerfully.
It is never fun to wait. We live in a speed-driven society. We have drive-through restaurants and banks. We blow the horn if the person in front of us doesn’t depart from a red light soon enough—waiting is not common in our current environment. Yet, the Bible tells us to cheerfully wait on God.
Waiting on God isn’t inactive. It requires our involvement. It means continuing to stand on the Word of God regardless of what we see. It is confessing His Word over your situation consistently. It is refusing to give up, refusing to become negative, and refusing to speak against what He has promised.
While none of that is easy – look at the reward!
The reward is that we want nothing! We are perfectly complete in whatever we believe from God: without lack, sound, entire, whole in body, without blemish or defect, complete in all respects.
That, my friend, is worth waiting for. That is worth choosing to be cheerful about.
I do not know what you are standing in faith for today. Whatever it is, may I suggest you allow patience to have its perfect work. The key is allowing patience to finish the work in us, to bring it to ultimate completion.
Philippians 1:6 says, Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.
Jesus will finish what He started, and we will see the result – nothing lacking – as we cheerfully continue to let patience work in our situation. Hallelujah!
