Seasons of Waiting
Wait.
A four letter word that, if I’m being honest, I don’t exactly love.
I love Amazon Prime. I love being able to immediately look things up on my phone. Even with grad school - gone are the days where I have to go to the library to do the research, now I can pull research articles and commentaries up within seconds. Life has almost created this inability to wait.
We live in a world where Instagram makes overnight success look like a reality for everyone except us. Our Amazon Prime packages make it to our doors in two days, if not one, and anything longer than that borders on infuriating. We can stick food in the microwave and have a meal in a few minutes, or we can pick up something on the way home rather than cook. And if we’re being honest, if the drive-through process (or pick up process) takes me longer than 15 minutes, I’m getting frustrated.
And in all of this, we’ve lost the art of waiting. Yet the Bible constantly calls us to wait on the Lord. Here are just three examples:
Psalm 27:14 (ESV) says “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”
Psalm 130:5-6 (ESV) says: “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning.”
Micah 7:7 (ESV): But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.
All of these scripture references about waiting show me that waiting is more of a lifestyle than something I do once, maybe twice. And if waiting is a lifestyle we are called into, then I have to learn how to wait well.
How I steward the time between the anointing and the fulfillment determines how I walk out the fullness of His promises.
I need to get to a place where my character can sustain whatever it is that God has for me. So if I am quick to criticize God’s timing and quick to hurry through the waiting seasons, my character won’t grow to the capacity that it needs to. How I sit in the waiting, how I learn God’s character during that time, will ultimately direct how I walk out His promises.
God doesn’t want me to wait full of angst and anxiety and tension. God wants me to walk out waiting seasons rooted in joy, peace, and expectation, knowing that His faithfulness is a sure facet of His character. But all of this is easier said than done.
Because waiting seasons are hard. It is hard to sit in a season of waiting, watching as other people are walking into their promised lands. It’s hard to sit in a season of waiting and maintain joy and expectancy when it seems like your dream is the equivalent of Lazarus - dead and in a tomb. It’s hard to sit in a season of waiting when you feel like if you could just pray the right prayer, or do the right thing, then you would immediately be transported into your promised land.
But can I just say: there is no “correct prayer” that’s going to transport me into my promised land. This type of mentality is only going to make the waiting season more tense and filled with dissonance. I have to come to the place of acceptance that waiting seasons make me more dependent on God--which is a good thing, even when it feels scary. Waiting seasons cause me to rely on Him and Him alone.
I can’t get to the promise by striving and working hard enough. While yes, there’s a level of obedience that I’m responsible for, it is God who ultimately brings me into the promise at the right time. And I have to trust that His timing for me is perfect.
I have to realize that God doesn’t send waiting seasons to punish me; that’s not His heart or His character. He allows them to develop me. He allows waiting seasons to grow and refine my character and make me the woman of God He has called me to be.
God wants my character to be able to sustain the promise. And so He fulfills His word. Not too soon. And not too late. His timing is perfect. Always.
Isaiah 55:10-11 (ESV) says:
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
God’s word never returns void, it never returns empty. His word always accomplishes that which He has purposed for it.
So whatever it is you are waiting for - a promotion, a spouse, a house, a job, financial help, healing, etc. - His word accomplishes what it is purposed for. Always.
Numbers 23:19 (ESV) says:
“God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?”
When I doubt God’s faithfulness in waiting seasons, I doubt His character and I believe a lie about Him. So in the waiting I have to wrestle with Him, I have to confront the lies that I believe about His character and His goodness towards me and replace those lies with truth.
So when I doubt, when I question if God will come through for me. Or if He will be faithful. I have to go to scripture and remind myself that my God is faithful and He cannot change His character. So I rest in His faithfulness and know that He will bring to pass whatever He has said.
Continue to go after God and pursue the fruit that lasts in waiting seasons.
Let’s be women who desire fruit that lasts. And let’s not strive for short term fruit.
We can waste the waiting season focusing on short-term fruit, and that short-term fruit will look different for each person depending on what they’re asking the Lord for. But it’s the fruit that lasts, the fruit we’re supposed to desire that we’re after.
Galatians 5:22-23 lists these fruits of the Spirit out - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
So let’s be women who pursue these things in the waiting seasons of life. Let’s be women who seek the Lord, and pursue His heart. Women who champion others on as they walk into their promised land. Women who are real and vulnerable before the Lord and let Him do the deep work while they wait for promises to be fulfilled.
I don’t say any of this coming from a place of “I’ve made it.” I’ve seen God come through on promises, and there are many others that I’m still waiting on. But one thing I’m confident in is that He will bring the breakthrough, He will bring the promise to fruition, but in His timing - and His timing is a lot better than mine. He is faithful, He cannot go back on His Word, and He will complete the words He has spoken over you. But be patient, pursue the fruit that lasts, rely on Him, and your waiting season will transform to one of expectancy and joy.
Do you find yourself in a season of waiting? What’s one scripture that has encouraged you in this season? Comment in the section below!
