Waiting seasons can be really frustrating. Days turn to weeks, weeks turn to months, and sometimes months turn into years. You wonder why God is making you wait so long? I want to help answer that question for you. This won’t change the fact that you’re waiting but it can give you hope in this season and help you to see that it’s not in vain.
Why God is Making You Wait So Long
God allows us to wait for many different reasons. We see this a lot in scripture. God gives his people a promise and it takes years to happen. Although it doesn’t make sense in our eyes, God always has a reason for allowing time to pass before fulfilling his word. Here are a few of them.
He’s preparing you for what he promised
God may be preparing you for what he promised. Take King David, for example. We know that he was one of the most prolific kings of Israel but do we know how he became king? He was just a young shepherd boy who God gave a promise. Through Samuel, the prophet, God told David that he would become the next king. But, it took many years. Why? God had to prepare David so that when he became king, he knew how to actually be a king.
This could be the same reason why you are waiting. God wants to prepare you for what he promised before he allows you to step into it. He’s not going to take you into a new season until he knows you’re ready. He’s a good Father who doesn’t set his children up for failure. He wants to give us good things but not until we’re ready.
Now, here’s the thing. It’s your responsibility to submit to him and let him prepare you. If you resist what God is doing in this season, you set yourself up for failure in the next. Stay where God has placed you until he says you’re ready to move forward.
Related: How to Wait Well When Everyone But You Is Getting Blessed
He’s teaching you how to be patient
Next, God could be teaching you how to be patient. We often pray for patience and forget that the only way to become patient is by being patient. Patience is hard, I know that. But good things require patience. Unfortunately, we can’t have everything at microwave speed. God’s kingdom doesn’t work like that. Interestingly enough, the Bible says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a seed. Seeds take time to grow into trees. Likewise, God’s plan for your life will require patience.
Perhaps you’re waiting because God wants to show you how the Kingdom works. Good gifts from God take time. Like seeds, they need care and attention. The gift God wants to give you is too good to be made in a microwave.
God wants us to press into his presence and wait patiently before his throne. He’s calling us to come before him with thanksgiving even if we’re still waiting on a promise.
The world has so many things they want to offer us on an instantaneous silver platter. But good God-sent blessings take time.
Related: How to Trust God in the Middle of Uncertainty
He’s strengthening your faith
Perhaps God may be strengthening your faith. Our entire Christian belief system rests on it. We know it’s impossible to please God without faith. Yes, Impossible. So, sometimes God allows us to walk through waiting seasons to help our faith grow stronger.
However, the faith he’s developing in this season is not shallow faith in things, it is deeply rooted faith in him. Besides, faith in anything other than God is no faith at all. Can you believe that God is who he says he is even when you don’t get what you want? Can you trust him when you get the 37th rejection letter? When you’ve prayed and cried and nothing seems to be happening?
God wants us to move away from having faith for things and begin having faith in him. Let’s look at job as an example. In the middle of intense trials, Job was able to say, “You give and take away but blessed be the name of the Lord.” Can you glorify God even if you never get what you’re asking for?
At the end of the day, everything of this world will fade away. Only God’s kingdom will remain. He wants to strengthen your faith for that Kingdom promise, not just the things you desire here on earth.
Related: 5 Things to Do When You Are Discouraged
He wants you to fix your eyes on him instead of the promise
Ask yourself this: do you want the promise more than you want God? He knows our hearts. He knows if we’ll forget about him if he gives us what we want right away. So, sometimes he just let’s us wait. During the waiting, we learn to love God more than we love the things we desire.
Abraham loved and trusted God so much that when God asked him to give up his only son, Isaac, he willingly complied, no questions asked. God spared Isaac because he didn’t actually want to take his life, he wanted to reveal Abraham’s true heart.
You know you’re in a good place when you’re willing to say, “Lord, I desire these things but they’re not worth having if I don’t have you.” Let me be honest, there are so many things I desire. But none of them are worth trading my relationship with God. I might not have everything I want but if I have God, I have everything I need.
You’re waiting on something God never promised you
Finally, you may be waiting on something God never promised you in the first place. The truth is, many of us are waiting on a promise that God never gave us. You may feel like you’re waiting forever because you’re actually waiting on something that God said no to. Search God’s word and examine your heart to see if this applies to you. You might encounter some painful truth but there’s nothing worse than spending all of your time waiting for something God never promised.
I hope this list has helped to clear things up for you. If you feel God is making you wait, hang in there. It won’t last forever. God will strengthen you in the middle of this if you let him. This season is just as significant as the next. Make the most of today so that when you do walk into the promise, you’ll be prepared.
Also these points are great. Plus the fact we can really get to know God. Which is priceless!
Thank you for reading Ava! I agree, the beauty of knowing God is so priceless!
I like fixing your eyes on Him instead of the promise. I do believe His promises are yes and amen. Many times we just don’t amen them. He won’t withhold good things but sometimes we do have to wait. It may be the phrase if we ask according to His will, that people don’t get. The Holy spirit is there to guide you in His will. Great post.
That’s so true – it’s so important to wait on God’s promises. It’s about his will over anything else! Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts!
Such a great truth—waiting is a part of God’s timing, His plan, His kingdom. His ways aren’t our ways. Waiting builds endurance and strength in our dependence on Father.
I struggle in the waiting seasons, and this was such a good word for me. <3
God bless! Thank you for reading. I’m glad it was helpful!
Waiting doesn’t always strengthen your faith nor does it always teach you to be more patient. Sometimes it simply destroys you, breaks you down into fragments. And all the while God stands by, silently allowing it to happen.
Thank you for an insightful article.
Hi Thomas – I’m very sorry that you’ve had that experience. You’re right, sometimes waiting feels like it’s destroying you. I can definitely attest to that. But in the struggle, the best person to hold on to is God. There are times I feel like God is teasing me in some sense with the promises that he’s having me wait on. But when I feel this way, I cling to what I know to be true about God. I trust that he is good and even when this waiting does not feel that way, I choose to hang on to this truth. I hope that this can encourage you in your waiting & I also pray that God grants you the desires of your heart according to his will
Everything God does is good. So if waiting does break you down that means you were holding your own self up and together and not He. Sometimes He does allow this like the article said, to reveal our hearts. If there is pride standing in the way and it’s blinding us, He knows what it takes to get our attention so He can pick us up and carry us and us stop trying to do it ourselves. 💙
This blessed me a lot✨God bless you, Praise God