James 5:8 says, Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. My family and I always take road trips every year. We enjoy going to Albuquerque to see my husband’s family. This trip is almost twenty-eight hours one way, and coming from Florida, it takes us a whole day and a half of driving to get there. Between the time we leave home and the time we arrive, there are several different emotions and struggles that we all experience. There are frequent bathroom breaks being made and constant questions being asked. Hardly a second passes when we do not hear, “Are we there yet?” I can even remember a time when I fed my son Animal Crackers for a ten-hour span just to keep him content and happy. As Mom, I must keep all of the tiny people happy in the backseat, or Dad is going to need to pull over the car. During that travel time in between, it is very easy for all of us to get impatient and tired.
I think of the children of Israel and how it took forty years to get to the Promised Land. Through their wandering, even though they followed the man of God, they also complained about how God provided for them, grew impatient, and even disobeyed God. God still continued to forgive them time and time again. He also continued to make provision for and give protection to them.
How many times in our own lives do we wander and get impatient, not just on road trips, but in our own Christian lives? The Bible says, Be ye also patient;… God wants us to be patient. We can get impatient with ourselves, our families, our friends, our jobs, and yes, even with God. That verse goes on to say, …stablish your hearts:… The word stablish means to build or strengthen. Spending time in God’s Word will help us strengthen our hearts. This helps us grow our faith in God and our dependence on Him. So many times in our Christian lives we decide to get in a hurry, and then our impatience leads us to disobey. We should have just waited on God and His timing. Often times during life’s circumstances we grow tired of waiting, and we ask God, “Are we there yet?”
The rest of that verse goes on to say, …for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. We already know from the verse that we must be patient and strengthen our hearts, but now we see the reason: …for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. As Christians, let us be patient and strengthen our hearts because the Lord is coming back to take us home. We do not know when He is coming back, but He certainly is. This time of waiting on God is the perfect opportunity for us to spend time with Him and to grow in our Christian lives. It is through fellowship with Him that we can learn patience, build our trust in God, and have a closer relationship with Him.
There may be some who are going through something and are continuing to ask God, “Are we there yet?” It is not our job to question when we are going to get there, but to Be ye also patient… Let us remember to be patient on life’s road trips!
by Mandy Harper
I’m not one to leave replys , but thank you of reminding me to be patient in all things and to wait on God’s timing.