Wait Well

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”

Psalm 27:14 (NIV)

Waiting on God is not doing nothing.

That is the first thing to clear up, because the English word “wait” suggests a waiting room: passive, empty, time to be endured until something happens. The Hebrew idea is far more active. It carries the sense of looking expectantly towards someone, of binding yourself to them, of the taut readiness of a rope pulled tight rather than the slackness of a rope left on the floor.

David writes, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”

Notice he says it twice, which in Hebrew poetry is how you underline something. And notice the instruction in the middle: be strong and take heart. Those are not words you give to someone doing nothing. They are words you give to a soldier. Waiting, done properly, requires courage.

Look at the wider psalm. Verse 13 is the sentence just before ours: “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” David is not waiting in a vacuum. He is waiting with a settled expectation of God’s goodness, and that expectation is what makes the waiting bearable.

Now, here is the trap most of us fall into.

We spend so much of the present season wishing for the next one that we miss what God is doing right now. We tell ourselves we will be happy when the door opens, when the answer comes, when the diagnosis changes, when the house sells, when the child settles. And in the meantime, life is happening, and God is present in it, and we are not.

That habit does not end when the door opens, by the way. The person who cannot be content in this season generally finds a new thing to wait for in the next one. Contentment is a discipline learned in the present tense or not learned at all.

Paul is clear that it is learned. “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances,” he writes in Philippians 4:11-12, and then he says he learned it in plenty and in want alike. Learned. It did not come naturally to an ambitious man in a prison cell, and it will not come naturally to you.

Let us be clear about what contentment does not mean. It does not mean you stop praying for change. It does not mean you stop working towards a goal, or that ambition is unspiritual, or that you should pretend a hard season is fine. Contentment means your peace is not postponed until conditions improve. You can hope for tomorrow and still receive today as a gift from God’s hand. You can pray earnestly for a new opportunity and still serve faithfully in the place where He currently has you.

So ask a better question while you wait. Not only, “Lord, when will this change?” but also, “Lord, what are You producing in me while I am here?”

Because something is being produced. Romans 5:3-4 says suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. James 1:4 says to let perseverance “finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” These are not consolation prizes for people who did not get what they asked for. They are the actual goal, because God is more committed to who you are becoming than to when your circumstances resolve.

Maybe He is teaching you patience, which cannot be taught quickly by definition. Maybe He is strengthening character in a place where nobody is watching, which is the only place character is genuinely formed. Maybe He is deepening a prayer life that only became serious when the easy options ran out. Maybe He is preparing relationships you will need in five years and cannot yet see the point of.

Think of the hidden years. David was anointed king and then went back to the sheep, and spent years running through caves before he ever sat on a throne. Joseph spent thirteen years between the dream and its fulfilment, most of it in slavery and prison. Moses spent forty years in the desert. Even Jesus spent thirty years in Nazareth and three in public ministry. If the Son of God spent ninety per cent of His life in obscurity, we should stop treating obscurity as wasted time.

Hidden work is still holy work. Do not despise it.

Let me add one honest note. Some waiting does not end the way we hoped. Some prayers are answered with a no that we carry for the rest of our lives. Do not let anyone tell you that enough patience always produces the outcome. Our final hope is not that every situation resolves; it is that Christ has risen and every tear will one day be wiped away. That hope holds even when the specific waiting does not end well.

But hear the promise in Isaiah 40:31: “those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.” Strength is renewed in the waiting, not only after it.

Waiting is not wasted when God is in it. Be strong, take heart, remain faithful, and trust that He is preparing both you and the answer.

Prayer

Father, I have spent a lot of this season waiting for the next one, and I do not want to miss what You are doing now. Teach me contentment the way Paul learned it, in the actual circumstances rather than after them. Give me strength and courage for the waiting itself. Where You are forming patience, character and hope in me, do the work fully. Help me not to despise the hidden years or the unnoticed obedience. Renew my strength as I hope in You. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Declaration

Waiting is not wasted when God is in it. I will be strong, take heart, and remain faithful where He has placed me today.

Pastor Ras

All Nations Community Church

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