Let Patience Have Its PERFECT Work

This past weekend, I read a post about Oretha Hagin that I found quite profound and very convicting. I want to share it with you today.

When Oretha Hagin was in her 70’s, the doctors diagnosed her with an incurable heart condition. It’s important to recognize that when the doctors diagnosed her, she didn’t just say, “Well I’m a Christian. I live with a mighty man of God. I’ve listened to a lot of sermons” and then think that’s all that she needed. Instead, she started to fill up on the Word for herself. She took a healing scriptures tape and played it all night and all day wherever she was.

She meditated those scriptures for months. She didn’t say, “well I’ve heard it a little, but it didn’t work so I guess it’s just too bad.” She didn’t say, “Well you know heart disease runs in the family, so I guess it’s just my time.”

No! She said, “I’m just gonna keep hearing.”

After one year of hearing the word, she was at home watching TV with her husband, and she saw an angel come into the room. He stood in front of her, reached into her chest, and deposited something he was carrying. It was a new heart.

They went to the doctor shortly after. They didn’t tell him anything that had happened. The doctor looked at it and said, “This isn’t the same heart. This is a completely different organ. This is the first verified miracle I’ve ever personally seen because I’m telling you this is a picture of a completely different heart!”

Holy Spirit TV/ Women’s Houses of Zion

What spoke to me the most was the fact that Mrs. Hagin stood in faith for an entire year. She pressed in for that amount of time without backing off the Word of God. How many of us are willing to do that?

Many will stand in faith for a few weeks or even a couple months – but if something doesn’t change, we often become discouraged and take a different route or give up all together. It reminds me of a scripture in the book of James.

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,  knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. (James 1:2-4)

Let patience have its perfect work. My pastor once gave me this scripture as a word from God. Its not one we really want to hear most of the time…

The word, patience, in this scripture means; cheerful (or hopeful) endurance, constancy, enduring, patience, patient continuance (waiting).

The word, perfect, means; brought to its end, finished, wanting nothing necessary to completeness.

This is what Mrs. Hagin did – she allowed cheerful, hopeful, enduring patience to work in her life and in her body. In the end, her trial was brought to an end, it was finished, and she had a new heart, with nothing lacking that was necessary to her completeness. What an awesome testimony.

It makes me think of what the generation before me called ‘praying through’. They prayed until they saw the answer they believed for. They refused to stop until patience had its perfect work. I don’t see as much of that happening these days.

Today, I wanted to share this testimony with you and hopefully encourage you to continue standing for what you are believing for. Allow yourself to think about what the PERFECT, totally completed, end of your trial would look like for you. Meditate on that.

I don’t know about you, but I love hearing testimonies like this – they encourage me. As I have said before, even recently, not all things happen in the blink of an eye – but if we refuse to move off the Word of God – they will happen…just as He said they would. We judge Him faithful and true. May we be a generation who prays through – all the way, until we see the fulness of the promises of God manifest in our lives and those around us. Until we walk in the healing, wholeness, abundance and peace Jesus gave His very life that we could enjoy. May it be so, Lord!