Hope in the Waiting: Trusting God’s Perfect Timing (Ep 159)

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Thank you for listening, and welcome to the podcast. I'm your host, Jason McConnell. Have you ever prayed for something and then waited and waited and waited some more? Maybe you prayed for direction in your life, healing for someone you loved to break through in your family, or clarity about your future.

You poured your heart out to God, trusted him with it, and then it felt like the answers never came. And if we're honest, those seasons can feel confusing. Sometimes they're frustrating. Sometimes they even make us wonder if God is listening at all. But here's something the Bible shows us again and again, waiting is never wasted when God is involved.

Throughout scripture, some of the most faithful people experienced long seasons of waiting. Abraham waited decades for the promise of a son. Joseph waited years in prison before God elevated him. David was anointed king, but waited many difficult years before he ever sat on the throne. What we discover in those stories is something powerful.

God often does his deepest work in us while we are waiting for him to work around us. Isaiah 40, verse 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 this episode, we're gonna talk about what God may be doing during the seasons, when life feels paused, when prayers seem unanswered, when heaven feels quiet.

Because sometimes the waiting season isn't a delay. Sometimes it's preparation.

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So in the introduction we talked about something almost every Christian has experienced at some point in their faith journey, those seasons where you pray and then you wait and wait and wait, and it feels like nothing is happening.

Maybe you're waiting for that clarity about your future. Maybe you're praying for healing direction in your career, restoration in a relationship, or simply asking, God, what am I supposed to do next? And yet, days pass, weeks pass, sometimes years will pass and it feels like life is on hold. So the big question we're exploring today is this.

What is God doing while we're waiting? Because when we read the Bible carefully, something interesting becomes kind of clear. Waiting isn't a rare experience for God's people. In fact, it's incredibly common. Waiting is actually one of the most normal parts of the Christian life. If you look through scripture, some of the most faithful people in the Bible spent long seasons waiting on God.

Let's go back to Abraham for a moment. God promised him a son and told him that his descendants would be a great nation, but that promise didn't happen quickly. Abraham waited decades before Isaac was born. Romans four, verses 20 through 21, tells us about Abraham's faith during that waiting period. Yet he did not waiver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

Abraham had the promise, but he still had to wait. And then there's Joseph and the Book of Genesis. Joseph received a dream from God that when he was young, uh, that suggested that God had a great plan for his life. But what followed that dream? Betrayal by his brothers slavery in Egypt, years in prison for something he didn't even do.

Joseph waited years before God elevated him to a position of leadership where that dream finally made sense or or think about David. David was anointed by the prophet's Samuel to be the future king of Israel, and that sounded like a pretty big moment, right? But David didn't become king the next week.

He spent years running from Saul, hiding in caves, living as a fugitive. Imagine being told that God had chose you for something great, and then spending the next decade in danger and uncertainty. Then there's the story of Israel itself. The people of God waited centuries for the promise. Messiah, generation after generation read the promises from the prophets.

They heard about the coming savior, but many lived and died without seeing that promise fulfilled. And yet, at just the right time, Jesus came. Galatians four, verse four says, but when the set time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman born under the law. Not early, not late at the appointed time.

When you step back and look at the Bible as a whole, a pattern emerges. Waiting is not the exception in scripture. It seems to be the norm.

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Now, that might feel surprising, especially for us today, because we live in a culture that absolutely hates waiting. I mean, think about it. Almost everything in our modern world is designed to eliminate that.

If you wanna talk to somebody, you send a text and expect a reply within minutes. If you want entertainment, you go stream a movie instantly. If you wanna buy something, it can show up in your doorstep that same day. We live in a world of instant results and immediate answers, but God doesn't work that way.

God works on a timeline that is often much slower and much deeper than we expect, and that's where understanding the biblical idea of waiting becomes so important.

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One of the more powerful passages about waiting comes from the book of Isaiah. Isaiah Chapter 40 was written during a time of deep discouragement for the people of Israel.

Many of them are living in exile. Their nation had been conquered, their temple destroyed, and they felt completely abandoned by God. Then they're asking questions like, has God forgotten us? Does he still care? Will he ever act? And into that moment of despair, God speaks through the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 40, verse 31.

Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles, and they'll run, not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint. That's what I read in the introduction, but that phrase, hope of the Lord is sometimes translated into weight on the Lord. In the Bible, waiting on God doesn't mean sitting around doing nothing.

It's not passive resignation. Old Testament scholars like John Oswald explained it this way. Waiting on the Lord means having confident expectation that God will act according to his character. In other words, biblical waiting is not about giving up, it's about trusting. It's choosing to believe that when, even when we cannot see what God is doing, he is still working behind the scenes.

And that's such an important distinction because when we think of waiting, we often imagine wasted time. I mean, think, think of delays, frustration, missed opportunities. But the Bible shows us something very different. God uses waiting. To shape us. These seasons shape us. He builds faith, he refines character.

He prepares us for what's coming next. Sometimes God is working on circumstances, but many times God is working on us. Think about Joseph again. The prison years weren't meaningless. They were part of preparation that shaped Joseph into a leader. He would eventually become. David's years running from Saul formed humility, courage and dependence on God.

Even Abraham's long weight strengthened his faith in God's promise and the same pattern often shows up in our lives today.

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So maybe you're listening right now and you feel like you are in one of those waiting seasons. Maybe you're praying for direction, but the path isn't clear yet. Maybe you're waiting for healing in a relationship.

Maybe you're asking God about your purpose, your future, your next step in life, and it feels like nothing is happening. But what if something is happening? What if God is doing important work in your heart right now? What if the waiting season isn't punishment for preparation? That's what we're going to explore together today because throughout scripture, the waiting seasons were never wasted, and chances are, if you are in one right now, God is moving more than you realize.

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So as we continue exploring this idea of faith in the waiting, there's an important truth we should probably understand early on. Waiting is not a sign of something being wrong in your faith. In fact. When we do look at scripture, we discover something kind of surprising. Waiting is normal. It's a normal part of faith.

I can't say that enough. Many believers assume that if God's silent or things aren't mo are moving slowly, it must mean that maybe something's gone wrong. Maybe we prayed the wrong way, or maybe our faith isn't strong enough. Maybe God is disappointed in us. But when we look at the Bible, we see a completely different pattern over and over and over again.

The people God used the most experienced longer seasons of waiting. Let's go back to Abraham. In Genesis 12, God promised Abraham that he will have a son and that his descendants will become a great nation, and that's that promise. Sounds incredible, but the f fulfillment didn't come quickly. Abraham waited 25 years before Isaac was born.

25 years of wondering, trusting, and believing that God would do what he promised. And circling back to Joseph as a young man, Joseph received that dream that suggested God had a special plan for his life, right? But that dream was followed by betrayal, slavery in prison. From the time Joseph received his dream to the moment he became second in command of Egypt, 13 years had passed.

13 years of waiting. And then when we zoom out even further in the biblical story, we see an even larger example between. The final waiting of the Old Testament and the birth of Jesus in the New Testament. There were about 400 years of silence, four centuries where God's people waited for the promised Messiah.

Generation after generation after generation hoped and prayed for the Savior to come. And yet when Jesus finally arrived, scripture tells us that it happened exactly when God intended. Not early, not late at the set time. What this pattern shows us is that God often works slowly, but he always works purposefully.

And that's something that challenges our expectations today because as I mentioned, our culture is trained to expect immediate results, immediate gratification. We want instant answers, instant progress, instant breakthroughs. But faith often operates on a different timeline. The Bible acknowledges that tension.

Believe it or not, listen to what Psalm 27, verse 14 says, wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. Did you notice something interesting with that verse? It repeats the instructions wait on the Lord, but waiting isn't described as weakness. It is strength. Be strong and take heart.

In other words, biblical waiting requires courage. It requires faith. It takes strength to trust God when you don't. Yet see the outcomes. Another powerful passage that speaks to this is Romans 8 25. The Apostle Paul writes, but if we hope for what we do, not yet have, we wait for it patiently. The key word here is Hope.

New Testament scholar, Douglas Mu points out something important about this verse. He writes, hope by definition is oriented towards what has not yet been realized. In other words, hope always looks forward. It points towards something that hasn't happened yet. That means waiting is actually built into the Christian lifestyle.

Faith, trust God today for something that will be fulfilled tomorrow. We see this in the promise of salvation. We are already saved through Christ, but we still wait for the full restoration of creation. We see it in personal prayers as well. We trust God even before the answers arrive. So waiting isn't a failure of faith.

It is where faith grows the most. And when we bring this truth into our everyday lives, it suddenly becomes very practical.

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Think about the kind of waiting seasons people experience today. Maybe you're waiting on a job opportunity to open up. You've applied, prayed, trusted God, but the door hasn't opened yet.

Maybe you're waiting for healing. You've prayed for months or years asking God to restore health and remove pain. Maybe you're waiting for reconciliation in a relationship. You're hoping for restoration, that a spouse, a child, or a friend or somebody like that will, will come back. Maybe you're simply waiting for direction.

You're asking God, what am I supposed to do with my life? And when those answers don't come quickly, it's easy to interpret the silence's absence. But what if waiting doesn't mean God's absent? What if it means God is working in ways we just can't see sometimes? God delays the outcome because he's shaping our character.

We're not ready for it. Sometimes he's aligning circumstances we don't yet understand. Maybe he's teaching us to trust him more deeply. Think about a farmer planting a seed in the ground After the seed is planted, nothing appears. Nothing happens for a while. The soil looks the same, but beneath that surface, something important is taking place.

Roots are forming, growing growth is beginning. Life is developing where nobody can see it yet. And in many ways, the waiting season of faith works like that. Even when it seems like nothing is happening. God may be doing his most important work beneath the surface, beneath the soil. So if you find you're in a season of waiting right now, take heart.

You are not alone for one, you're actually walking a path that many of God's people have walked before you. And are walking alongside you. And as we continue through this episode, I wanna explore some even deeper questions, like what is exactly is God doing in those waiting seasons? Because the Bible suggests that while we're waiting for God to move around us, he's doing something powerful within us.

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I think one of the more difficult lessons in the Christian life is learning how to wait, how to wait. If we're honest. Most of us prefer immediate answers. We all know that. We want God to move quickly, fix the problem, open the door, reveal the plan right away. But throughout scripture we see that God often works through seasons of waiting.

In fact, waiting isn't wasted time. It's training time. Think of it that way, training time. So in this part of this episode, I wanna explore how waiting actually builds spiritual strength. God uses these seasons not to weaken our faith, obviously, but to deepen it. He does everything to, to bring us closer to him.

It's our, it's our job to choose it. So when life feels slow, uncertain, or stalled, God is doing something. Maybe some of his most important work in our hearts.

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And one of the more powerful promises about waiting comes from that book of Isaiah, Isaiah 40, verse 31. But those who open, the Lord will renew their strengths.

They will soar on eagles, wings like eagles. They'll run, not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint. Third time I've read it this, in this episode, it's important. This verse is incredibly encouraging, but. There is a detail hidden in the language. The Hebrew word translated as hope or weight is kava, and it carries a much deeper meaning than simply sitting around twiddling your thumbs.

Qva means to expect to trust and to look forward with anticipation. So biblical waiting isn't passive. It's, it's not resignation. It's not throwing our hands up and saying, well, I guess nothing's gonna happen. Instead, it's a posture of active trust. It means believing that God is working even when we can't see the outcome.

The promise attached to that kind of waiting is pretty remarkable. Though it's renewed strength. The imagery Isaiah uses here is powerful. He says, those who wait on the Lord will soar like eagles. Eagles don't flap constantly to stay in the air. They ride the wind's currents. They, they rise because they catch the strength of something greater than they are.

And that's a picture of what happens when we learn to rely on God instead of relying on our old strength. Matthew Henry explains this pretty well in his commentaries. When he writes, they that weight upon the Lord shall have their strength renewed, they shall grow stronger in faith. It's pretty simple, right?

In other words, waiting doesn't drain spiritual strength. It should build it. Faith muscles grow when we develop them on God over time.

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And we see the same principled echo in the New Testament in James one verses three and four because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance, let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking.

Commentaries on James often emphasize perseverance isn't just gritting your teeth, it's it's. In Greek, it means victorious endurance. I love that victorious endurance. James is teaching us that God isn't interested in just giving us the thing that, that thing that we're waiting for, he's interested in the person we are becoming while we wait.

If God gave us everything instantly, our faith would stay shallow, but it would be, it would be like a muscle that never gets to lift anything heavy. It would eventually atrophy and this waiting. Is the heavy lifting that produces maturity.

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Look, if you're feeling stuck today, I want you to look at the world around you.

Athletes, they don't just show up on Olympic Day. They spend years in the waiting room of the gym training when no one is watching. Students spend, spend years studying before they ever walk across that graduation stage. Builders spend weeks or months digging down into the dirt to lay a foundation before a single floor of a skyscraper ever rises into the air in every area of life, preparation always happens before promotion.

If the foundation isn't deep enough, the building will collapse under the weight of its own success. Spiritually, it's the same. God might be keeping you in a season of waiting because he's building your UA foundation. A foundation in your character that can support the blessing he has planned for you.

He's not ignoring you, he's preparing you.

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So what are you waiting on right now? Is it a career change, a restored relationship, physical healing? Instead of asking God, what is going what, when is this gonna end? Try asking God, what are you building in me right now? 'cause remember that waiting room of God is never a wasted room.

He's renewing your strength, he's binding his heart. Tears, your trust, the process, because the strength you gain in the waiting is what will carry you through to the win. Look, guys, if you're anything like me, waiting is not your favorite word. We live in a world high speed internet, overnight shipping instant results.

We've been conditioned.

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We've actually been conditioned to think that if something is taking long, it must be wrong, but we. As we journey through our faith, we should discover that waiting is not wasted. As I've mentioned over and over again, it's preparation. So now I wanna explore this idea that God often uses the middle of our story, the part where nothing seems to be happening, to build the character we need for the end of the story.

Whether you're a new believer wondering why your prayers haven't been answered yet, or a seasoned believer facing a long-term trial, I wanna show you. Or at least hopefully try to show you how God is working behind the scenes to prepare you for what's next.

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So let's go back to Joseph in the book of Genesis.

Now, if you're new to the Bible, Joseph's story reads kinda like a movie script. He starts as a favorite son, but then he is betrayed by his own brothers sold into slavery and eventually thrown into a dark Egyptian prison for a crime he didn't commit for 13 years. Joseph was in a holding pattern from the outside.

It looked like his life was a series of failures. But looking back, we see that those years were a divine training ground in slavery. He learned how to manage a massive household in prison. He learned how to lead and interpret the hearts of men. God was developing Joseph's character before he gave him his calling.

If Joseph had been promoted to second in command of Egypt the day after he had his prophetic dreams as a teenager, his ego likely would've crushed him. He needed the humility that only the waiting room could have provided. God often has to do a work in us before we can do a great work through us. So are you in a season of betrayal or prison right now?

Don't lose heart. God is likely refining the very tools you'll need for your future.

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The Bible is incredibly consistent about this. Look at Ecclesiastes three 11, which tells us. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity into the human heart. Yet no one can fathom what God has done from the beginning to the end.

This verse reminds us that God, he's the master artist. When you look at a painting halfway through, it looks like a mess of blurred colors. You might ask an artist, what are you doing here? But the artist sees the finished masterpiece. We have eternity in our hearts, meaning we have a sense that there is a bigger purpose, but we can't see the beginning to end like God does.

Then we have the words of the prophet Habakkuk. He was living in a time of chaos and was desperately waiting for God to move and God answered him in Habakkuk two verse three. For the revelation, awaits an appointed time. It speaks of the end and will not prove false, though it linger. Wait for it. It will certainly come and will not delay.

Interesting phrasing though it linger. Wait for it. To us, it feels like a delay. God is saying it's an appointed time. Biblical scholar. Ff Bruce once noted something in interesting about this tension. He said, God, God's promises unfold according to his timetable, not humanities and patience. The ancient culture, the context waiting wasn't seen as a lack of activity.

It was seen as an act of allegiance. When a servant waited on a king, they were weren't sitting on the couch, they were standing at attention ready to move. The moment the king gave the word, Bruce's insights here challenges us. Are we waiting with impatience or are we waiting in alignment with his timetable?

Historically, God has always used long periods of silence to proceed great acts of salvation. The silence is an absence. It's this deep breath before the miracle happens. I, I can't tell you how many Christians I've talked to personally, who look back on their hardest seasons and say, now I see why God made me wait.

Many of these Christians have been guests on this podcast. Maybe they didn't. They didn't get that job. They wanted only to find a better one, open up right when they were actually ready for it. Maybe your relationship didn't work out because God was protecting them or teaching them how to find their worth in him alone.

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I wanna tell you a quick story about my own period of periods of waiting. I had a job a few years back that paid really well. However, the culture of the company was toxic and adversarial. After a year at that place, I decided I've had enough. I started looking for a new job. I had one particular prospect that looked very good, and it was, I was scheduled to have one last interview with the big wig, but I mean, it was all but guaranteed at that point.

God spoke wisdom over me and told me that I needed to stay where I was. I needed to learn to be joyful. This job that I hated in Colossians three, verse 23 came to me. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for the human masters. And I chose to listen. I, I canceled my last interview, determined to work for God exactly where I was.

And I was there an agonizing year, toiling way, but putting God first the best that I could. I would pray before I started work. I would pray before meetings, and I just sought God's wisdom and strength at every turn. Then the job that I have now landed in my lap. It was a huge pay cut, but the company has a wonderful culture.

There are godly people there openly sharing their faith, and I've been there for two years now. Imagine what would've happened if I had not listened, if I had gotten impatient and jumped ship too soon.

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Look, waiting. Seasons produce three things we can't get anywhere else. Humility, we realize we're not in control.

Spiritual maturity. When we learn to trust God's hand and even when we can't see his face and clarity, the noise of life that fades away and we finally hear God's voice regarding our true calling. So here's my challenge for you this week. If you are in a season of waiting, stop looking at the clock and start looking at your heart.

What is God trying to teach you today that you'll need tomorrow? Don't despise the preparation. The foundation must be deep if the building is going to be tall.

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Alright, so far we've talked about how waiting builds our strength and how it acts as a divine preparation. But I'm gonna be honest with you, there is one part of waiting that is harder than all others combined.

It's the silence. Have you ever prayed and prayed day after day and felt like your words just hit the ceiling? When you're waiting on God, it's easy to mistake his silence for absence. We've talked about a lot of that, but it's easy to think that if we don't see him moving, maybe he's not doing anything at all.

And right now I want to kind of challenge that perspective. We're gonna take a look at truth, at the truth that God is still working, even when you, we cannot see it, and how understanding this can change the way you navigate. Your current waiting room. So one of the more important things for us to grasp whether we've been following Jesus for 30 years or 30 minutes, is that silence does not mean an activity in our culture today.

We are obsessed with visibility. If a company is working on a new product, they post behind the scenes teasers. If a friend is going on vacation, you see photos in real time. If we've, we've been trained to believe that real work is always visible work. But like many things, God operates differently.

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Think back to the life of Joseph, which we touched on earlier.

When he was sitting in that Egyptian prison, there wasn't a heavenly neon sign flashing. God is currently working on the pharaoh's dreams. For Joseph, it was just another Tuesday in a dungeon. He couldn't see the gears of the cosmos turning to bring him to the palace. He couldn't see God arranging the famine or the arrival of the cup bearer.

He just saw stonewalls. But just because Joseph couldn't see the movement doesn't mean the master architect wasn't at work. God works behind the scenes of our lives, orchestrating details that we aren't even aware of yet, sometimes we never will be. And to be perfectly honest, he's moving people. He's changing hearts and aligning circumstances that are far beyond our field of vision.

Jesus actually spoke to this very idea in John five 17 when people were questioning his timing and his work. He said in his defense, Jesus said to them, my father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working. I love that always at his work. Not usually, not sometimes when the prayers are loud enough, but always this verse is a direct strike against our fear that God has checked out.

When we combine that with the promise in Romans 8 28, we get a clearer picture of how he works, and we know in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Now, I want you to notice that it doesn't say God works in all things to be visible immediately.

It says He works in all things, period. All things includes the silent years. It includes a no, it includes a, not yet. He is weaving a tapestry. And right now many of us look at the back side of the fabric, the side with all the messy knots and tangled threads, and we can't see the pattern he's creating on the other side.

But Romans 8 28 promises that that pattern is good. And T Wright offers a beautiful perspective on this. Regarding God's timing and visibility, Wright explains God's purpose. Often unfolds in hidden ways before they become visible. Think about the cultural context of the first century believers. They were a tiny, persecuted group waiting for the kingdom to appear from the outside.

It looks like they were losing. Wright's point is that God's kingdom often starts like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds. It grows secretly in the dirt. Historically, God's greatest moves often begin in total obscurity. The birth of Christ happened in a stable in a tiny town while the rest of the world slept.

The resurrection happened in a sealed tomb. If God's most world changing moments begin in secret, why would we expect his work and our lives to be any different?

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Let's go back to our seed planting. In the ground example, if you were to stand over that patch of dirt and watch it, you'd see nothing happening.

It looks like a grave, but beneath the surface, that seed is undergoing radical transformation. The outer shell is breaking. The roots are pushing deep into the soil to find water. Life is developing in the dark. If you were to dig it up every five minutes to check the progress, you would actually kill the plant.

The growth must happen in the dark before it can survive in the light. Your waiting season is your underground season. You might feel like you're in the dark, but this, that's exactly where your roots are growing. That's where your spiritual maturity is developing. God is working below the surface of your life right now, building that foundation that can sustain the fruit that he wants to produce later.

So don't let the silence discourage you. Don't let the lack of visible progress make you think. God has forgotten his promise. He is always at his work. Trust the gardener even when you can't see the sprout.

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So let's get practical for a moment. If you're in the middle of a long season of silence or a delayed breakthrough, the question shifts from why to how.

How do we wait in a way that honors God? How do we keep our faith from flickering out when the finish line isn't in sight? The Bible doesn't just tell us to grit our teeth and endure it. It actually gives us a strategy for waiting faithfully. So let's explore what active waiting looks like, because it's not, it's not a comma in our spiritual life.

It's an exclamation point of trust. One of the biggest misconceptions about waiting is that it's like sitting in a doctor's office scrolling through your phone until your name is called. In the Kingdom of God. Waiting is a verb. It's, it's an action. It's active. So how do we wait? Well, it starts with I believe, four pillars.

First, stay in prayer. This is our lifeline. Prayer in the waiting room isn't just asking for the wait to end, it's asking for God's presence to be enough while it lasts, and you may not get a response, but God hears you. He does. Second pillar, stay in scripture. When God is silent, we go back to what he has already spoken.

The Bible reminds us of his track record of faithfulness. Third pillar, stay in community, waiting's lonely. We need brothers and sisters to carry our burdens when we, when our arms get too tired. Fourth pillar, keep serving. This is a big one. Don't put your life on hold just because one specific prayer hasn't been answered.

If God hasn't moved you to the next thing yet, it means he still has work for you to do In the current thing. Think of it like a relay runner. Even when they aren't holding the, the Batten, they're, they're moving, they're warming up, they're staying focused on the track. They are ready to receive. Waiting Well means being ready to receive by doing the small, faithful things.

Today the psalm is captured this posture perfectly in Psalms one 30, verse five, I wait for the Lord my whole being waits and in his word, I put my hope. Notice. It doesn't say watch. My watch waits. My calendar waits. He says, my whole being waits. This is a total person commitment. And where does he anchor that hope in his word.

When the word feels sha, when the world feels shaky, the word of God is the only solid ground we have to stand on. But I, I know what you might be thinking. Jason. I've been waiting for a long time and I'm just playing tired. I hear you. The apostle Paul knew that feeling too. That's why he wrote in Galatians six verse nine, let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time we will reap the harvest.

If we do not give up, guess what folks? The proper time. It's God's time. This verse is a, a reminder that our current season is a season of sowing. You don't plant the seed and expect a harvest the next afternoon, you water, you weed, you wait. The harvest is guaranteed by the God, by God's character. We just have to stay in that field and work it.

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John Piper provides a wonderful insight into this mindset. He writes, waiting for the Lord is not passive. It is a confident expectation, expecting trust in God. Think about that word expectant in the original biblical context. This kind of waiting is compared to a watchman waiting for the morning. The watchman doesn't wonder if the sun will rise.

He knows it will. He just doesn't know the exact second. The first beam of light will hit the horizon. Piper's point is that, that our waiting should be colored by the certainty of God's goodness. We aren't waiting on a, maybe we are waiting on a certainty. The historical perspective of expectant trust shifts our mood from anxiety to anticipation.

So how do we apply this tomorrow morning when we wake up and the situation hasn't changed? It starts with changing the questions we ask God instead of asking, why is God making me wait, which assumes God is being difficult. Try asking. What might God be forming in me during this season? Think of yourself as a clay.

On a potter's wheel, the wheel has to spin for a while before the vessel's ready to take shape. If the potter stops the wheel too early, the clay would just be a lump. The waiting is the spinning of the wheel. That's a terrible metaphor. I'm sorry. It's the process that allows the master's hands to smooth out the rough edges of your character and build you up, build up the walls of your spiritual maturity.

This week, I wanna encourage you to pick one of those four pillars, prayer, scripture, community or service, and lean into it. If you've pulled back from church because you're frustrated with God, lean back into that community. If you've stopped reading your Bible because it feels dry, ask the Holy Spirit for a fresh word today.

Waiting well doesn't mean you aren't sad or frustrated or whatever it means you are choosing to be obedient in the middle of all of those feelings. God is with you in the wait. He is worth the wait.

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As we wrap up today's episode, I wanna leave you with one central truth that we've explored throughout our conversation.

Waiting is not wasted in God's hands. All throughout scripture, we see this pattern again and again. God uses waiting seasons to shape people he loves. Abraham waited for the promise of the son. Joseph waited through betrayal in prison. David waited years before becoming King, and even God's people waited generations for the coming Messiah.

In every one of these stories, the waiting wasn't meaningless. It was part of God's work. During those seasons, he was building faith, preparing hearts, strengthening character, and aligning everything in according to his perfect timing. And that leads us to the takeaway for today. Even when life feels paused, God is not, he's still working.

Sometimes the most important work God does isn't around us. It's happening within us. The waiting season may be that moment where God is shaping us the most. So this week, if you find yourself in a season of, of waiting, try asking a different set of questions. Ask. Don't ask why is nothing happening? Try asking, what might God be teaching me right now?

How can I trust him more deeply in this moment? Where can I remain faithful today? If you are in a waiting season, take heart. God hasn't forgotten you. He is still moving, still shaping, still guiding your story forward and your faith journey is still unfolding. Until next time, keep loving your neighbors.

Dive into God's word daily and may the Lord bless you and keep you and fill you with his peace. Take care. God bless, and I'll see you in the next episode.

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