When God Makes You Wait
Share
“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”
–Psalm 27:14
We have built a world around immediacy.
Messages arrive instantly. Groceries show up at the front door. Entire seasons of television are available the moment we want them.
We have grown so accustomed to getting what we want when we want it that delay feels like a four-letter word.
And then God says, wait.
Not for five minutes or even five months. Sometimes for years. Sometimes decades. And most often, He gives no indication of how long the waiting will last.
Scripture never pretends this is easy.
Notice the language of Psalm 27:14: “Be strong, and let your heart take courage.” Apparently, waiting on God requires courage.
Contrary to popular understanding, biblical waiting is not inactivity. It is active trust. It is refusing to run ahead of God when everything in you wants an answer now. It is continuing to walk faithfully with what He has given you today, even when you cannot see what He is doing tomorrow.
The Bible is full of people who had to wait. Abraham waited twenty-five years for the son God promised. Joseph spent years as a slave and prisoner before he ever saw his God-given dream come to pass. Moses lived forty years in Midian before God called him back to Egypt.
None of them could see the whole story while they were living in the middle of it.
Neither can we.
That is what makes waiting so uncomfortable. We want to know what God is doing, how long it will take, and how it will turn out. But God rarely answers these questions with an explanation.
Instead, He simply tells us to trust Him.
Think about bread dough set aside to proof. From the outside, it appears that nothing is happening. It just sits there.
But beneath the surface, the dough is changing.
Cut the process short, and the bread will not be what it could have been.
Seasons of waiting can feel just as uneventful. The prayer still seems unanswered. The door has not opened. The situation has not changed.
But that does not mean nothing is happening.
God is not merely concerned with the end of the wait. He is at work in the waiting.
Like a skilled baker, God often kneads and shapes us. So, the waiting period is not wasted time. It’s the proofing stage where our faith is strengthened, character is built, and God aligns things according to His perfect plan.
Yet waiting often reveals how quickly we equate God’s goodness with getting the answer we want. It teaches us whether we trust God Himself or merely trust Him when His timing agrees with ours.
Saul learned this painfully.
When Samuel did not arrive when Saul expected, Saul panicked. His army was scattering, the Philistines were gathering, and waiting suddenly felt too risky. So he took matters into his own hands and offered the sacrifice Samuel had told him to wait for.
Saul’s problem was not simply impatience.
He trusted his own judgment more than God’s command.
That is often the temptation in waiting. We start believing that because God has not acted yet, we need to make something happen ourselves.
But waiting on the Lord is an act of faith.
James compares it to a farmer waiting for the harvest. The farmer cannot command the seed to grow. He works faithfully, watches expectantly, and waits for what only God can produce.
That is very different from passivity.
There may be steps for you to take while you wait. Obedience may require action, wisdom, perseverance, or difficult decisions. But none of those require you to seize control of what belongs to God.
And there is another truth we need to remember: waiting on God does not guarantee that we will receive the particular thing we are waiting for in this lifetime.
Hebrews 11 tells us about commendable people who died still waiting for promises they had only seen from a distance.
Yet, they kept trusting the One who is faithful.
Maybe that is the deeper work of waiting. It is teaching us to say, “God, I trust You even here.”
That is active trust.
In a world that constantly tells us to make something happen, waiting on God says something very different:
I will be faithful today and trust You with tomorrow.
Reflection Question
What does active trust look like in the situation you are waiting on right now?
Further Reflection
📖 Lamentations 3:21-26
📖 Isaiah 40:29-31
📖 Psalm 40:1–4
📖 Hebrews 11
Prayer
Lord, waiting is hard when I cannot see what You are doing or how long the answer will take. Keep me from rushing ahead of You simply because I am uncomfortable with uncertainty or feel a desire for control. Give me courage to obey You faithfully in the waiting and patience to trust Your timing. Whether You change my circumstances quickly, slowly, or differently than I hope, teach me to trust You for who You are. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
4 comments
A good reminder that God does things on his timeline, not ours. Trust Him to answer your prayers with yes, no, or not now. Thank you for your words to start the day!
Amen. Something of which I work hard to remain conscious.🙏❤️
Beautiful!!
Incredible… Gods Timing of this message for me, totally needed this encouragement! Thank you for being FAITHFUL to the Lord’s calling on your business- reaching souls for Christ- Be Blessed😇🙏