If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t like waiting very much. Waiting in line at the dining common, waiting in traffic on your way home from work, waiting for the bell to ring at the end of your last class for the day…. These are just a few kinds of waiting we do on a daily basis.
There are even more ways we wait on a larger scale in our lives. We wait for seasons and weather to change, for our next favorite movie or TV show to premiere, and for the next break from the busyness of college. Waiting is just part of normal life, something that we all experience at various times and places.
But have you ever been in a season of life where you’ve been waiting on God to do something? To answer your prayers for healing for a family member? To show you the right job opportunity for after you graduate? To provide for you and your family financially? To do something only He specifically can do?
If so, you’re not alone. Abraham waited 25 years from the time God promised him descendants until Isaac was born. Jacob waited and worked for seven years before Laban would let him marry Rachel. The Israelites waited and wandered in the wilderness for 40 years before they could enter the promised land. Even Jesus waited 30 years before beginning His public ministry.
This kind of waiting can be even harder, because sometimes God makes us wait for reasons we don’t understand. We want to know what His plan is and where He’s leading us. We want control over our lives and what happens to us, but only God truly controls that.
Even when we don’t know what He’s doing, we can know that He is trustworthy. Lamentations 3:25-26 says, “The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.”
God is always good to us, and He calls our waiting good. He is trustworthy in the middle of our times of waiting.
Now, I know reminding you that God is trustworthy may not make it seem any easier to trust Him, especially in waiting. We all know waiting can be extremely difficult. Still, God is present with us in the waiting. While we are impatient, He is patient with us. He is gracious to bring us to the point of surrendering to Him over and over again, gently asking us to trust Him.
In reality, God cares more about changing our hearts than giving us exactly what we want. Ultimately, He uses waiting to transform us to become more like Him. So, in your seasons of waiting, look for how God is transforming you, and be thankful for His goodness.
