Waiting on God

A Season of Waiting on God

“For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay” – Habakkuk 2:3

Wait.

Not again? How long? Can I have it now? Why must I wait? These questions may flood your mind the moment you hear the word “waiting on God”. If there is a list of dreadful words voted by mankind, “Wait” may probably make it to the top ten list.

More often than not, we look at waiting as a negative state of being, with connotations such as “slow”, “delay”, or “inaction”

Still, waiting is an inevitable constant in our lives. We are always waiting for something in life - waiting to receive a job promotion, to meet our significant other, to have a situation turn around for the better. Regardless of what we are waiting for, we all wish to accelerate time, skip the process of waiting and get to the end of our wait.

God is Waiting For You to Accept His Promises

In one of my seasons of waiting on God, I found myself asking if God Himself had ever waited for anything to come to pass. After all, He is the creator and He can have anything and everything He desires. God brought my attention to His greatest act of waiting – that we will all come to accept His salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” – 2 Peter 3:9

My heart leapt at this verse that there is a purpose in waiting on God. He made a promise and He has to wait for His own words to be fulfilled so that as many as under the sun would come to accept His son as their savior.

If we consider God waiting for mankind to receive His salvation against the backdrop of time, then surely God has waited for a long time since the death of Christ on the cross. I take comfort in the truth that even God Himself waited while humanity rejects His son despite his relentless pursuit for us. God has a purpose for waiting.

What then is God’s purpose for mine? For a long time, I wrestled with this question.

The desire for immediacy, an end to an agonizing wait that is plagued with uncertainty and unknown is especially great during the time when a loved one was stricken with cancer.

Waiting on God Builds Our Trust in God

“When Pharaoh finally let the people go, God did not lead them along the main road that runs through Philistine territory, even though that was the shortest route to the Promised Land.” – Exodus 13:17

The Bible records that normally it takes only eleven days to travel from Mount Sinai to the Promised land (Deuteronomy 1:2). However, it took the Israelites forty years to get there. God led them the longer, harder way because He knew they were not ready to enter the land. They needed time for training, – developing strength and faith – so that they could fulfill their destinies.

God could have supernaturally and swiftly healed my dad thus saving me from waiting on God. However, I would have lost the precious experience of spiritual growth in that season. In that darkest time – when I could not see light, when the storm was raging the fiercest and the roaring waves overwhelmed me – I was initiated into learning to be still and trust Him.

I learned to trust not on what I read from books and the internet, but to trust in God’s faithfulness. I learned to lean on God, to stop figuring things out alone, to humble myself and trust Him whose timing for healing is not according to my timetable, but in His perfect will. 

When I could accept that there was an appointed time for healing and that God made all things beautiful in His time (Ecclesiastes 3:11), I found it meaningless to keep a watch on time. I could carry on and wait in God’s peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7).

God Reveals Himself as We Wait Upon Him

Being still did not spell that challenges cease overnight. Waves continued to toss, their thunderous roars enhanced the seeming silence of God. When the deafening silence was hard to bear, I was reminded of the word of God in Psalm 37:3 which says "Trust in the Lord and do good; so shall you dwell in the land and feed surely on His faithfulness, and truly you shall be fed.”

Against all logic, the higher the waves rose, the less I desired to leave the storm. It was a time when I drew near and frequent to God. I found comfort dwelling in the storm, to behold Jesus, to see Him in His word. As I dug deeper into God’s word, God revealed more of Himself and His promises for me. Each time when I felt weak, His words filled my mind and as I meditated on it, the fears would slowly but surely melt away. In that dwelling of affliction, I was truly fed and strengthened by God like no other time.

As I am writing this, I realized that it has been a year since my dad has been healed of cancer. In that season of waiting on God, God turned the trial into good.

He strengthened me, journeyed with me and delivered me. The word of God is our surety, His word never fails. “……they who wait for 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).

Conclusion

In conclusion, waiting on God is never easy. But there is a purpose behind waiting on God. Trust in His perfect timing and I hope you have been blessed by this article about waiting on God.