Waiting
You are waiting. For results, for a job, for a child, for someone to change, for a season to lift. Waiting is its own kind of hard work, and it is lonelier than people realise, because there is nothing to show for it. Scripture takes waiting seriously. Almost every major figure in it spent years in a holding pattern before anything happened. You are not being overlooked. You are in the part of the story that rarely gets described.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (public domain).
But those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint.Isaiah 40:31
Strength is promised to the waiting specifically, as an exchange.
Wait for Yahweh. Be strong, and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for Yahweh.Psalm 27:14
Repeated twice, because the first time is rarely enough.
I waited patiently for Yahweh. He turned to me, and heard my cry.Psalm 40:1
The turning came. It is written by someone on the other side of a long wait.
It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of Yahweh.Lamentations 3:26
Quiet waiting is called good, not wasted.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.Ecclesiastes 3:1
Seasons end. That is what makes them seasons.
My soul, wait in silence for God alone, for my expectation is from him.Psalm 62:5
Where the expectation is placed determines how bearable the wait is.
For the vision is yet for the appointed time, and it hurries toward the end, and won’t prove false. Though it takes time, wait for it; because it will surely come. It won’t delay.Habakkuk 2:3
Appointed time — the date exists, even though it has not been shown to you.
Rest in Yahweh, and wait patiently for him.Psalm 37:7
Rest and wait in the same instruction, which is harder than it sounds.
Let’s not be weary in doing good, for we will reap in due season, if we don’t give up.Galatians 6:9
The only condition attached is not giving up.
Being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.Philippians 1:6
A slow work is still a work in progress.
But don’t forget this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.2 Peter 3:8
The clock you are watching is not the only clock running.
My soul longs for the Lord more than watchmen long for the morning; more than watchmen for the morning.Psalm 130:6
A night watchman knows morning is coming. That is the kind of waiting meant here.
Yahweh is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.Lamentations 3:25
Goodness is attached to the waiting itself, not only to the outcome.
By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance. He went out, not knowing where he went.Hebrews 11:8
He waited twenty-five years for the promised son. It was not a short story.
Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to those who love him.James 1:12
Endurance is noticed and honoured, even when nobody else can see it.
The Bible is largely a book about waiting. Abraham waited twenty-five years for a son. Joseph spent thirteen years as a slave and a prisoner before anything he had dreamed made sense. Israel waited four hundred years in Egypt. David was anointed king as a teenager and spent roughly fifteen years being hunted before he wore the crown. Between the last page of the Old Testament and the first of the New, four silent centuries pass.
The Hebrew word often translated wait carries the sense of twisting strands together into a rope — of tension being held rather than time being killed. That is closer to the experience than the English word suggests. Waiting is not passive. It is the active work of staying faithful when there is no visible progress to report.
Two things help. The first is Habakkuk 2:3: the vision is for an appointed time. Even if the date has not been disclosed to you, there is one, and delay is not the same as denial. The second is Isaiah 40:31, which promises exchange rather than endurance — those who wait renew their strength. Note the order it ends in: soaring, then running, then walking without fainting. Most of waiting is the walking part. Keep doing the good in front of you, let people know you are struggling, and hold on to Galatians 6:9. Due season is a real season, and it does arrive.
It means actively trusting God through a delay rather than passively enduring it. The Hebrew word carries the idea of tension held, like strands twisted into a rope. Practically, Psalm 37:7 pairs it with resting, Lamentations 3:26 with quietness and hope, and Galatians 6:9 with continuing to do good. It is faithfulness in the absence of visible progress.
Isaiah 40:31 is the most quoted: “those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength”. Psalm 27:14 is the most repeatable — “Wait for Yahweh. Be strong, and let your heart take courage.” For a long, undated wait, Habakkuk 2:3 is the most steadying: the vision is for an appointed time, and it will not prove false.
Scripture rarely explains individual delays, but it shows what long waits produce. Joseph’s years in prison shaped the man who later saved a nation. Abraham’s twenty-five-year wait made the promise unmistakably God’s doing. 2 Peter 3:9 says God is not slow as we count slowness, but patient. Meanwhile, keep asking — Jesus told a parable specifically about persistent prayer.
Feelings rarely arrive one at a time. These pages sit close to this one.
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