Don’t Waste the Waiting
There are some kinds of waiting that make your stomach hurt.
- Waiting for the doctor’s office to call.
- For the text message.
- To hear if your child made the team.
- Waiting for the interview.
- Or, you wait for someone you love to come home.
Those minutes can feel like hours. Your mind imagines every possible outcome while your heart wonders, Lord, what are You doing?
I’ve learned that some of the hardest moments of faith happen not when life falls apart—but while we’re waiting to find out if it will. I call this waiting with a deadline. We know the answers to our questions will come, but time goes so slowly.
Waiting Can Be a Season
One of the hardest lessons God has taught me this year is that waiting isn’t just something we do for a few days. Sometimes waiting becomes a season. You pray and trust. Maybe you hope. Yet tomorrow looks much like yesterday, and the answers you long for still haven’t come. This is waiting without a deadline. God will answer, life will turn again, but we don’t know how long we will have to wait.
I experience this most often in times of heart-suffering. Grief makes us wait because there is no tidy ending to it. So when we suffer the silence and unanswered questions, we wait. As Christians, we have so many questions:
- How do I trust God while I wait?
- What does the Bible say about waiting?
- Why is God making me wait?
In the psalms we read many times about waiting. The people of Israel did a lot of waiting in the Old Testament. They waited for God to deliver them over and over again. In the times of waiting, they still maintained hope. One of the most comforting chapters is Psalm 130.
The author cries out to God from a place he calls, “the depths.” I think that perfectly describes waiting sometimes. A holding cell or a place of pausing and non-movement. In this psalm he continues to say a phrase that we often forget: he waits for God.
What does it mean to wait for God? Wait for God to show up? For God to answer? Wait for God to do something….? I think it means he is turning his waiting into a place of trust and hope. He ends the chapter with O Israel, hope in the Lord!
While We Wait…
1. Cry out to God. (vv. 1–2)
Waiting isn’t passive. It’s prayerful.
2. Remember what is true. (vv. 3–4)
God forgives.
He is merciful.
And He is trustworthy.
3. Hope in God’s promises. (vv. 5–8)
Waiting isn’t wishful thinking. It’s a confident expectation because of who God is.
We hope and wait together – in God. Yes, he will answer, but more than that, we learn more about Him in our waiting. We learn to lean on Him, trust in Him, and develop our spiritual faith muscles as we wait.
Mark Vroegop in his book, Waiting Isn’t a Waste: The Surprising Comfort of Trusting God in the Uncertainties of Life, says: “Waiting requires living by what I know to be true about God when I don’t know what’s true about my life.”
We don’t know a lot about our life, but we do know lots of true things about God. As we wait, Mark also says, “One of the Hebrew words for waiting expresses this. Qavah – combines tension with a sense of anticipation or looking ahead. The word’s origins are connected to the twisting or stretching of a cord—tension is part of what it means to wait.”
There is a tension, yes, but that tension is not bad. We waste our waiting when we become more focused on getting the answer we want than on knowing the God who is with us while we wait. Worry, striving, and trying to control the outcome slowly replace trust. But Psalm 130 reminds us to wait for the Lord—not just His answers.
Friend. Hope in our waiting might seem hard, but daily walking with God means to hope each day and believe God will fulfill His promises in His perfect timing and always with a deeper, better purpose.
Waiting is not wasted when we place our hope in God.
Weekly Practice:
Read Psalm 130 each day and surrender one area of waiting.
5 Truths to Remember While You’re Waiting
- God is working even when I can’t see it.
- God’s timing is never late.
- Waiting is not wasted.
- My hope is in God’s character, not my circumstances.
- God’s promises are more certain than my fears.
What Can I Do While I’m Waiting?
Waiting doesn’t mean doing nothing. While you wait for God to answer, you can still take faithful steps each day.
Pray honestly.
Tell God exactly what is on your heart. He welcomes your fears, questions, and hopes.
Stay in God’s Word.
Even when your circumstances don’t change, God’s truth remains the same.
Keep doing today’s work.
Faithfulness today prepares your heart for whatever God has tomorrow.
Remember God’s past faithfulness.
Looking back reminds us that God has never abandoned His people.
Hope one day at a time.
You don’t need enough grace for next month. God promises grace for today.
What Psalm 130 Teaches Us About Waiting
Waiting is…
Crying out to God.
Trusting His character.
Hoping in His promises.
Looking ahead with expectation.
Believing redemption is coming.
This post is part of the Fall 2026 Blog Series
Every Day with God: Meeting with Jesus in Every Season of Life
Abiding isn’t just a summer lesson—it’s a lifelong way of walking with Jesus. Whether life is joyful or difficult, busy or quiet, we can meet with God every single day through His Word.
“One thing have I asked of the Lord…that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” — Psalm 27:4
*Click here to read more posts.