Wait on the Lord;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the Lord![Psalm 27:14]
If we’re honest, most Christians would say that they spend the bulk of their lives waiting on the Lord, waiting for Him to take action or to speak to them, waiting for the fulfillment of His promises. And if we’re honest, it is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, sources of frustration and discouragement in our lives–trust me, I KNOW. I am well-versed in this arena and am very much in a season of waiting currently, as I wait to be able to reach full-funding and launch into the field. So I write from experience.
If you Google “waiting on God,” you’ll find pages and pages of articles, and you have likely seen one of the Christian memes on social media or Pinterest that list the waits of some of our Biblical fathers and how we’re in good company when we’re stuck in a period of waiting. The problem is, what if our definition of waiting doesn’t actually match God’s? Our dictionary says that to wait is “to remain inactive.” And thus, that’s what we do. We sit. We do nothing. And we complain to God that nothing’s happening. But what if waiting doesn’t actually mean inactivity on our part?
The issue with the well-meaning memes I mentioned is that they encourage us to compare the specific and expansive details of our lives to the selective details of what’s recorded in the Bible. Take Joseph, for example. Those memes encourage us to compare our waiting to the time that Joseph spent wrongfully imprisoned, waiting for God to bring the fulfillment of the dream He gave him. But look: verse 23 of Genesis 40 tells of how the chief butler forgot to tell Pharaoh about Joseph. The very next verse, 41:1 begins “Then it came to pass, at the end of two full years…” That’s it. There are zero details about what happened in those two years. Did Joseph just sit in his prison cell, twiddling his thumbs? I doubt it.
So then what does it mean to wait? Waiting on God isn’t a passive activity, and it certainly isn’t inactive. Rather, waiting on God is an exercise, an activity of faith. This, I think, is the first thing we get wrong about waiting on God; that is, far too many of us wait faithlessly.The Hebrew word for ‘wait’, קָוָה (qavah) actually has to do with expectation and a certainty that what you’re waiting for will actually come. It’s basically the same as the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1 (Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality—faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses]. [AMP]).
This leads us into the first answer to our main question: If Biblical waiting isn’t inactvity, what do we do while we’re waiting on God?
- Grow your faith and relationship with God.
Being in a season of waiting is the best time to build your relationship with the Lord, so cling to Him with everything you’re made of, especially in those moments where the waiting is really wearing on you. Qavah can actually also mean “to bind together,” so use your time in waiting to bind yourself to the Lord. If your period of waiting involves more free time, then spend it in worship, prayer, and in the Word. Often times, we’re put in a season of waiting because God wants to work on us first, refine us first, prepare us for what’s ahead first. So let Him.
If we’re even more honest, the moments in which we’re the most frustrated by our waiting are the moments that we’ve put whatever it is we’re waiting for above God, made it our god instead, and forgotten how big, how sovereign, and how omniscient God is. So step 1a would be to surrender your plans, your ways, and your timing to the Lord. Only by putting our eyes on Christ and remembering that His perspective and His timing and plans are far greater than ours can we find contentment in where we are, find contentment in our waiting. Trust Him because He is God.
2. Move.
Waiting on God doesn’t mean not to move. What if in your waiting on God, He is also waiting on you? Passivity is one of the biggest problems in our culture, particularly among 20-something Christians. Take steps forward. Faith requires action. Take a look at another popular verse about waiting on God:
But those who wait on the Lord
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.Isaiah 40:31
If waiting were inactivity, how could you run or walk? Clearly, we’re supposed to wait on the Lord AND run at the same time. I think that when we’re waiting on God is when we need to run the hardest.
If you’re waiting for the Lord to give you direction for your life, for your career, take action, take steps forward. I think the biggest issue with this type of waiting, which is so extremely common, is that we want everything clearly laid out and lined up, all our ducks in a row, before we start moving because we’re afraid of falling or messing up or “going outside of God’s will” (that will be its own blog at another time). But God wants us to take steps of faith; He wants us to take a step in the dark and trust HIM that our feet will land on solid ground. And if you really don’t know what to do, what you’re already called to do; go read Matthew 28:19 and Acts 1:8 and start there. If you’re waiting for everything to line up and make perfect sense and be in the perfect condition, you will never stop waiting.
If you’re waiting for a husband, welcome to the club! On Wednesdays, we wear pink ;).
But in all seriousness, this one hits even more home for me because I started planning my wedding (to Justin Timberlake, obviously, #NSYNCforLife) when I was a kid and finding Mr. Right had been the focus for much of my life. Getting married was my prerequisite for many things; in fact, when I first started feeling the tug to go on my first mission trip, I said that I would do it once I’m married and forgo a honeymoon for a mission trip. God obviously ended up winning that battle (because He always wins), and I couldn’t be more grateful.
I KNOW that there are many women who relate to this one, putting life, especially serving God, on hold until post-marriage, maybe being secretly afraid that if we’re too busy with other things, we’ll miss out on Mr. Right when he passes by. I believe this is a lie from pits of hell in order to prevent women from living out their God-given potential and purpose. Satan is deceiving us just like Eve because he knows how insanely powerful a woman on fire and living for God is. So run your race; serve God with everything that you’re made of, and sooner or later, a man will catch up with you.
“A woman’s heart should be so close to God that a man should have to chase Him to find her.” – CS Lewis
3. Live in community.
Go back to the first sentence of this post really quick. You don’t even need to open your Bible to see that you ARE in good company, or you should be, at least. When you’re waiting on God for something, it can feel as though the secular world is moving so much more quickly than you are. If you’re one of the women waiting for a husband, be honest: in the thick of it, the thought has crossed your mind at least once that it’s completely unfair that a non-Christian woman you know got married and you’re still waiting. That’s why we have to remember that we’re not of this world. We’re rare rubies looking for rare sapphires. And that’s why it’s so important to be in community with other rare rubies. And as a bonus, not only does living in community allow us to be encouraged, but it also gives us the opportunity to encourage, and I’ve found that when we minister to others is when we minister the most to ourselves. There’s nothing more beautiful than being able to use your experiences to touch the heart of someone else.
Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track. Don’t assume that you know it all. Run to God!
Proverbs 3:5 (MSG)
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