The Waiting Season
Holding on when the answer hasn't come yet.
Waiting is one of the most spiritually demanding things God asks of us. Whether you are waiting for a child, for a job, for a diagnosis to resolve, for a prodigal to return, or for a prayer that has been prayed a thousand times without an answer — God is not absent in the delay. He is working in the waiting, and the waiting is not wasted.
A Prayer for This Season
Lord, I have been waiting and I am tired of waiting. I have prayed this prayer many times and the answer has not come. I do not always understand why, and I will not pretend that I do. But I choose to keep coming to You. I choose to believe that You have an appointed time and that the vision will not lie. Give me the patience to wait with established heart rather than unraveling in the delay. Give me the grace to hold hope when evidence is thin. And when the morning comes — when the answer arrives in Your timing — let me receive it with the gratitude of someone who knows what it cost to wait. I trust You, Lord. Even in the not-yet. Amen.
Scripture for This Season
“But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”
Isaiah 40:31
KJV
Waiting on the LORD is not passive endurance — it is an active spiritual posture that produces renewed strength.
“Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.”
Psalm 27:14
KJV
The repeated command to wait suggests this is not natural or easy — but courage and heart-strength are promised for those who do.
“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.”
Lamentations 3:25-26
KJV
Written from the depths of devastation — waiting is not just tolerated but called 'good' by the God who sees the whole story.
“For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”
Romans 8:24-25
KJV
Waiting with patience is the very nature of hope — hope that can be seen is not hope at all.
“I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.”
Psalm 130:5-6
KJV
The intensity of a watchman waiting for dawn — this is the quality of longing God honors in the waiting season.
“For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.”
Habakkuk 2:3
KJV
The promise has an appointed time — it will come and it will not lie, even when it seems delayed.
“I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God.”
Psalm 40:1-3
KJV
David's testimony from the other side of waiting — the waiting ended in a new song and established steps.
“Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts.”
James 5:7-8
KJV
The farmer who plants and waits for rain — patient not because the harvest is guaranteed soon but because the harvest is guaranteed.
“Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.”
Micah 7:7
KJV
Micah's declaration in the middle of a dark season — I will wait, and my God will hear me — is an act of defiant hope.
“Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.”
Psalm 37:7
KJV
Rest and patient waiting are connected — fretting and waiting cannot coexist; one must displace the other.
5-Day Mini Devotional
Paul says something almost impossible to receive in the middle of a waiting season: hope that is seen is not hope. Real hope, by definition, is for the unseen — for what has not yet arrived. And waiting patiently for the unseen is not a failure of faith. It is faith.
This reframes the waiting in a fundamental way. The delay of the answer is not evidence that God has forgotten, or that the promise is false, or that you prayed wrong. The delay is the very territory in which hope does its work. Hope is not the feeling that the answer is coming today. Hope is the decision to keep believing when it has not come yet.
And Paul adds something else: what we hope for that we do not see, we wait for it with patience. The patience is not passive. It is an active, ongoing choice to hold the hope rather than surrender it.
The waiting you are in right now is not wasted time. It is the specific environment in which God is doing something that can only be done in the waiting. Things that cannot be grown in abundance or answered prayer — things like trust, and character, and the specific kind of faith that has been tested and found real — these are grown in the waiting.
The waiting is not wasted. It is the field where something essential is growing.
Prayer
Lord, I choose to believe today that this waiting is not wasted — that You are at work in the delay. Give me the patience to hold the hope rather than surrender it. I trust that what I am waiting for has an appointed time. Amen.
Journal Prompt
What do you most fear the waiting season means — that God has forgotten, that the answer is no, or something else? Bring your honest fear to God today.
Practical Steps for This Season
- 1.
Write down the specific thing you are waiting for and the date you began waiting. Having it concrete prevents the waiting from feeling like an indefinite fog.
- 2.
Find the testimony of someone who waited for what you are waiting for and eventually received it. Others' stories of answered waiting are fuel for faith.
- 3.
Identify one thing you can do faithfully while you wait — something that feels like participating with God in the direction of what you are hoping for. Waiting does not mean inactivity.
- 4.
Resist the urge to give the waiting a false deadline. 'If God doesn't answer by X date' statements set up faith-crises that are not necessary. Wait without the ultimatum.
- 5.
Journal your waiting journey. When the answer comes, you will want the record of what it cost to wait and what God did in the middle of it.
Journal Prompt
“What have you discovered about God, yourself, or faith that you would not have learned if the answer had come immediately?”
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