Waiting Well

Written by Kate Powell 

I think we can all agree that at some point in our lives, we have entered a season of waiting. You may have heard the phrase, “hurry up and wait.” Few things test the human heart quite like waiting. 

We don’t enjoy it. Not really. We don’t like waiting for packages, waiting at red lights, waiting for answers, or waiting for clarity. And yet life is full of it. 

But there are deeper kinds of waiting too—the waiting after a hard diagnosis, the waiting for a baby, the waiting after job loss, the waiting for healing in a marriage, or the waiting for a wayward child to return. These are the kinds of waiting that stretch the soul. 

In Scripture, waiting is not optional—it is part of following Jesus.  

Few things can feel more frustrating than waiting on God. Our Father’s timing is not our timing. Yet, waiting is absolutely essential in every single area of our lives.  

The real question is not if we will wait, but how we will wait. 

How do you wait well? How can we experience life in the waiting? 

Waiting can feel frustrating, lonely, and uncertain. Yet throughout Scripture, God our Father repeatedly used seasons of waiting to prepare His people for His promises, refine them for spiritual maturity, and to teach His sons and daughter’s how to surrender control.  

Let’s briefly look at some heroes of faith and how they handled waiting.  

• Abraham and Sarah waited 25 years for a child 

• The Israelites spent a lot of time waiting on the leading and movement of God while in the wilderness 

• David spent several years waiting from the time he was anointed King as a teenager until he finally took the throne at age 30 

• Paul spent two years waiting in prison after his arrest in Jerusalem 

From these stories, we can draw four practical principles for what it looks like to wait well. 

Abraham and Sarah waited approximately 25 years for the child God had promised them. Sarah carried such a deep, agonizing longing to become a mother that after years of waiting, she took matters into her own hands. In an attempt to help God fulfill His promise through human effort, she had her servant Hagar sleep with Abraham. 

This is a good example of how not to wait well, but how relatable is this type of response? How often have we tried to control our own outcomes, force doors open, manipulate timelines, or ‘help God out’ because the silence or perceived lack of movement feels unbearable? 

The principle we can learn from Abraham and Sarah is that waiting well means refusing to manipulate outcomes to speed up God’s promises. It means resisting the urge to “help God out” when silence feels long or when nothing seems to be moving. Instead, it is asking the Holy Spirit for the strength to resist the temptation to put our hands on the wheel. It is yielding to the Holy Spirit and allowing Him to fill us with the patience we need to endure. 

The Israelites in the wilderness show us something different but just as important. 

In Numbers 9, the Israelites traveled through the wilderness being led by the presence of God through a cloud by day and fire by night. Scripture says: 

At the Lord’s command the Israelites set out, and at His command they encamped. —Numbers 9:18

The Israelites did not move because they felt ready. They did not pack up camp because they were tired of waiting. They moved when God told them to move, and they stayed when God told them to stay. 

Can you imagine how difficult that must have been? Their main job was to keep their eyes fixed on God’s instructions before they could do anything. 

Later in the passage, Scripture says: 

Whether the cloud stayed over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a year, the Israelites would remain in camp and not set out… —Numbers 9:22

And again: 

At the Lord’s command they encamped, and at the Lord’s command they set out.” —Numbers 9:23

God was showing them that the cloud could lift in a day, a month, or a year. There was no fixed timeline. They had to be broken of their own time demands and their own internal sense of timing. 

So instead of receiving instruction through a predictable schedule, they received it through God’s presence. Learning to follow meant waiting as long as God stayed and moving only when He moved. 

The second principle we learn in this story is waiting well means surrendering your timeline and your control and becoming dependent on God’s leading. 

The wilderness was never wasted. God was forming His people in dependence. He was teaching them that His presence was more important than their timeline and that trust is built one day at a time. 

The Israelites had to stay ready. Even while waiting, they remained attentive to the movement of the cloud. Even while camped, they remained prepared for movement. Waiting was not passive inactivity—it was active surrender. Their only assignment was to stay ready and follow God’s lead. 

Another powerful example of waiting well is found in the life of King David. 

King David was anointed as king while still a teenager, yet he did not step into the throne until around age 30. In the years between the promise and its fulfillment, he lived in caves, fled from Saul, and walked through long seasons of uncertainty and delay. At one point, David even had opportunities to kill King Saul and take the throne by force, but he refused, choosing instead to honor God’s timing and not touch “the Lord’s anointed.” In the hidden places of the wilderness, David stayed faithful, even when his life was under pressure and the promise felt far away. Scripture later describes him as “a man after God’s own heart,” revealing that his waiting season shaped not only his leadership, but his devotion. 

The third principle we can learn from King David is waiting well means pursuing intimacy with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and remaining faithful in hidden places while God prepares you for what He has promised. Even with all the adversity David faced, he never stopped chasing   the Lord. 

The last example of waiting well is found in the life of the Apostle Paul. 

The Apostle Paul spent two years in prison, yet his life was still directed by purpose. Even in confinement, he wrote, taught, and strengthened believers through whatever doors were still open to him. He didn’t abandon what God had given him just because his environment changed. Even while under guard, Paul continued telling people about Jesus. 

He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance!  —Acts 28:31

The principle we can learn from Paul is that waiting well means responding to God with obedience even in the limitations of your current season. Paul continued to lean in and found ways to share the good news of Jesus with whoever would listen—whether through writing letters or speaking to those around him. 

Maybe you are in a season of suffering and all you can manage is to open your hands and whisper the most powerful name of all: “Jesus.” Maybe for you, waiting well simply looks like crying out, “Yes, Jesus.” That is simple obedience. 

I am currently in a season of painful waiting.  

About eight months ago, my husband left his six-year career to pursue a different field of work. Recently, we realized that this new career path was not the right fit. Now we are waiting to see what God our Father has next for our family and what the right employment opportunity will look like. 

The reality is that we do not know when the next paycheck will arrive or what the future will hold. 

As a single-income family, this season has felt uncertain and, at times, scary. Situations like this will absolutely test your marriage, stretch your finances, and create fertile ground for Satan to capitalize on fear, anxiety, and discouragement. I have been forced to sit in this uncomfortable waiting room, and honestly–it is not fun. 

But in the middle of the waiting room, there have been several tender moments where our Father has met me in the vulnerable valley of uncertainty. 

Slowly, my prayers have shifted from “Father, please deliver me from this uncomfortable waiting room” to “Father, I trust You, and I am ready for You to do whatever You want to do in me through this waiting.” 

Waiting isn’t passive. It’s active trust. It’s choosing faith over fear, surrender over control, and hope over discouragement. 

Isaiah 40:31 reminds us: 

But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

In the ecosystem of Trexo, we constantly come back to taking the pressure off and living life in the Overflow. What does life look like if we let our Father go first in all things and surrender every area of our lives to the will and timing of our Father who is faithful? What does it look like for you to wait in the Overflow? 

Maybe the waiting room is where trust is being strengthened, character is being refined, and dependence on the Father is taking deeper root. This is the kind of waiting room worth staying in. That is the room I want to be in—-in the presence of our Father. It is not for nothing.  

Brothers and sisters, if you are weary in the waiting today, I pray you can find refuge and strength in the quiet places of the waiting room in the presence of our Father, wrapped in the grace of Jesus, and by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. 

The same God who sustained Sarah in her longing, the Israelites in the wilderness, David in the waiting to become king, and Paul in confinement is sustaining you too. 

His timing is perfect. His presence is enough. And His Word will accomplish exactly what He intended. 

So, surrender the timeline, trust in our Father, and keep waiting well.