This week I’d like to follow on from Diana, who wrote last week about “in my Father’s house there are many mansions”.

Diana referred to them not as many mansions, but as different mansions. She wrote of them being places of rest where a traveller could be refreshed on their journey. The idea being that we are each on a spiritual journey if we are Christians.

On this journey, some people want to run before they can walk.

In Isaiah above, we read:

“…those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.”.

We need to be patient with God and wait on God.

This journey will contain different elements and we must learn to be patient with ourselves, with our church and patient with God. Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength.

This scripture almost implies that the opposite is also true. That is, those who don’t wait on the Lord will not renew their strength. There is a waiting on God to do for us that which we cannot do for ourselves. And this requires patience on our part.

We all go through times of struggle, we all go through times where we feel spiritually slow. We can all go through times where we feel everyone is against us. We can all feel worthless as a Christian. But this scripture encourages us to hold fast, to have patience and to wait upon the Lord.

Also in this scripture there is a sense of him waiting for you. You are His creation. He’s adopted you into His family, and He’s waiting for you to come to Him as He is in the centre of it all.

He is waiting for you to wait on Him for your renewal.

He is waiting on you to be renewed, to have strength, to get on the road again, to run on your journey and not grow weary, and to soar with wings above the trials of this life.

He wants you to wait on Him, and we all need to learn patience.

Earlier this week I read about a gentlemen called Jonathan Goforth. He was a missionary from Canada, who was a poor farmer with handmade clothes. He was mocked and made fun of because of his shabby appearance and zeal. He had to learn to wait upon the Lord and to be patient.

He got married and went to China where he went from town to town preaching, teaching and singing the gospel. He experienced floods over 6 feet high, the death of his 3 children through malaria and meningitis. He had no converts and by 1900 the Boxer uprising came where many westerners and missionaries were slaughtered. He had to flee over rough roads in primitive carts with over a hundred people throwing rocks at him, trying to kill the foreign devils. However, by then, he could count up to fifty Christian centres where he’d established a group or church. And he knew how to wait upon the Lord so his strength would be renewed.

Patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Something that God wants to give all of us who wait on Him.

Amen.