5 Important Lessons Learned in the Waiting

Many of us are familiar with what it’s like to wait in a long line. We anxiously look at the time that’s conveniently posted everywhere such as on our wrist, phone, and the walls. 10 minutes goes by. 15 minutes go by… We stand awkwardly shifting our weight from our left foot to our right foot and we wonder “how long is this going to take?!”

The idea of waiting I want to cover is the topic of waiting on God’s timing for something whether it be the home you are looking for or the spouse you’ve been after or the child you’ve been waiting for or that job opportunity to open up. All of these things are gifts from God who cares about the details of our lives. A lot of times it not until we end up in this place of waiting that we realize we have to wait for God to work. We realize we need God’s help. Our lives are in God’s hands and I truly believe that the wait can be a precious gift all in of itself even though it can be so painful and we just want it to end.

Waiting can be seen as a “preparatory limbo” where we don’t have what we desire but we can prepare for it’s possible arrival. I believe waiting can require taking action in some ways and not taking action in others. It’s in this place of uncomfortable lack that we can learn so many great virtues like patience and humility, but here I want to dive deeper into what our connection is with the gift we are waiting for.

A man’s heart plans his way, 
But the LORD directs his steps.
Proverbs 16:9 NKJV

Lesson Number One: “I Need God’s Help”

This is the first lesson. We need to reach a place where we realize that our lives are not shaped by our efforts alone. From the beginning God has been with us. God even sees the first moment we see something we want before it even becomes something we long for. Wanting things in this life is not wrong. God wants us to have dreams and aspirations. But at the same time we are not entitled to whatever we want. God can give us anything and everything, but not everything is meant to be ours in this life. God’s plans far surpass our own (Isaiah 55:8-9).

One thing I am waiting on God for is a spouse. Based on my own past efforts I could be married already. I had that option presented to me and I could have taken it. I could be married to a man who adored me with children right now but that life would have been a lie. Thank God I didn’t choose that road then. It’s not what He had for me and I knew it. That life offered me everything I wanted, but it lacked God. And I would have been ruining more than just my life. I would have ruined that man’s life. So thankfully I am single now with much greater priorities in the right order, but I still haven’t given up on my hopes of being married one day to the man God has for me.

Perhaps you have tried everything you can think of to get what you want, but like me, nothing seems to be working. You see how similar avenues have worked for other people and nothing seems to work out for you. Maybe like me you feel like “I just don’t get what I’m doing wrong?” Well perhaps you have been turning to the wrong things and the wrong resources. Perhaps there is a deeper reason for all your pitfalls. Have you talked to God about what’s going on? Have you talked to God about what it is you have been working towards? Trust me there is no better trailblazer than the Lord. He makes a clear path where there was none. He makes something happen when everyone said it could never happen. God’s got all the right connections in this world and in heaven to make things happen.

Unless the LORD builds a house, 
    the work of the builders is wasted. 
Unless the LORD protects a city, 
    guarding it with sentries will do no good.
Psalms 127:1 NLT

2. Preparation For The Future

The wait is being used to prepare us for whatever is to come regardless of if we receive what we are waiting for or not. A lot of times we can miss out on the much bigger picture when we are so laser focused on that one thing we want so bad. Sometimes the thing we want consumes us. We think of it when we wake up and when we go to bed and every free moment in between. We have to take a step back and just breathe. What else do we need to be focusing on here and now?

Often times God puts us out in a desert field full of rocks when we really wanted a cute little farm in the mountains. I’m sorry, but often times the person God is raising us up to be isn’t raised on flowing prairies, but rather on harsh desert land. Some people seem to get everything handed to them overnight. Good for them. That’s all fine and dandy, but hardship teaches a person a lot of things that a cushy life never could. So my friend don’t be afraid of farming some harsh land and getting your hands dirty first. That’s where real, strong men and women are made. Keep your hand to the plow and the Lord will bring you what you need when the time is right.

Often times it’s the seemingly useless tasks that help us to develop greater skills. I can’t help but think of the movie The Karate Kid and how disappointed and angry Daniel was having to paint an entire house when he was there to be taught karate. Sometimes I feel like him and I find myself telling the Lord, my sensi, “I didn’t sign up for this. I came here to learn karate!” But like Daniel we often get taught seemingly meaningless tasks that are really the stepping stones for what God has in store for us. We just don’t understand it yet.

To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance...
Matthew 25:29 NLT

3. Reality Check

In waiting for our request, we can learn more about what that gift really entails. Often times it’s so easy to see what other people have and say I want that too without knowing what it involves. We don’t understand the hard things people endure as part of receiving those gifts and the responsibility that can be required. Are you ready for the work load of the job you want? Are you ready for the sleepless nights and scary ER visits with a new baby? Are you ready to share all your weaknesses and insecurities and be completely vulnerable with some else? Are you ready to make a monthly mortgage payment for the next 30 years of your life? Are you ready to be committed to one person until death?

There are so many other factors and other people’s lives involved in the gifts we ask for. Often times the things we request impact many other people’s lives. It’s not just about us and what we want. My advice would be to talk with someone who has exactly what it is you are waiting on God for and ask them the hard questions. Maybe ask yourself one too, “is this really what I want?”

4. Contentment Despite Your Circumstances

Waiting any length of time involves some form of suffering. Waiting is a form of suffering in my book. It’s this suffering that makes months go by painfully slow and makes years feel like lifetimes, decades like centuries, usually without any hint of an end in sight! And so it’s in this place of uncertainty we can learn true contentment despite what we do or do not have. We don’t have to wait to be happy at last when receive what we were waiting is over. We have great cause to be happy now! Because of the greatest gift of all that we have received.

As a young unmarried woman I have high hopes and I wait for my own requests to come: a husband, children, and a home together. But I am also reminded of Luke 2:8-20 and I try imagine what it would be like to have been able to show up with the shepherds who came to Jesus when he was born in Bethlehem. What it would be like to literally pick him up, a tiny newborn, and hold him in my arms and see him as a gift for me. On my behalf he was going to grow up and then be crucified for me. In the absence of my requests I am reminded Christ is the greatest gift of all from God to me, my salvation.

Realize all that you do have now and be grateful. Also acknowledge the gifts you used to pray for and now you have received and recall how long it was you waited for them. Do not forget them. Waiting is not an easy and natural thing for us. I’m certain you won’t have to look far to be reminded of what God has given you. In the midst of waiting, remember your salvation which you received the moment you first believed.

 ... What do you have that God hasn't given you?...
1 Corinthians 4:7 NLT

5. Blind Trust

True faith is built when you cannot see one step ahead of you and God says, “walk.” It’s in this place where we really learn to lean on God for what’s to happen next. In waiting we begin to trust in God’s efforts rather than just on our own strength. As I struggled with this lesson in my own waiting (which as yet to have any end in sight), God gave me the following verse from the Psalms. It taught me so much about how I believed for so long to just rely on my own actions, my own efforts, and my own skills. God was asking me to trust in him. He was the one who brought me this far and he was going to help me the rest of the way in his will, and on his time. It’s not about my own agenda and schedule and what tools I have at my disposal. God has already set a time for every season of my life. This I know for sure.

I do not trust in my bow;
I do not count on my sword to save me.
Pslams 44:6 NLT

Out of all these lessons and hard times we can learn to hold onto our desires more loosely and hold onto God more tightly. God asks us to wait for many reasons beyond what we can understand, but please do understand that waiting is never a punishment but a gift. A very difficult one, but a gift nonetheless. Waiting not a work-to-earn-program, but rather a simple place of self-restraint, character development and trusting in God. Waiting is a place for rich exponential growth and God sees our personal development as highly valuable. Dare I say, he cherishes it.

God is merciful in his asking of us to wait for his time. For example, would you really go back in time and buy your 16 year old self that brand new dream car? No! No possible way because you know at 16 you were not experienced enough to really appreciate it and take care of it. I know if I did such a thing for my younger self, she would have wrecked that thing in a week or at the very least would not have used it for anything very good. God is sovereign is what he does, everything down to the detail. And there’s no one who knows us better. I know I could never find a better matchmaker, father, or sensei. God is the king of playing the long game. And so we wait. For the things of this life, for eternity and for home. And Christ is waiting for each of us to be where he is. At just the right time He will come to get us (John 14:3).