How to wait on God without your faith going cold

Waiting is not the same as doing nothing

James tells his readers to be patient like a farmer waiting for the valuable crop, through the early and late rains. Notice who he picked. A farmer is not sitting on a chair staring at the horizon. He is planting, watering, weeding, repairing — doing everything except the one thing he cannot do, which is make it grow.

That is the shape of a healthy wait. There is work that belongs to you and work that does not, and most of the misery of waiting comes from confusing the two. Write down both columns this week. Then do your column properly and stop trying to do the other one.

• What is genuinely mine to do here — an application, a conversation, a phone call, a habit?
• What is not mine, no matter how hard I push?
• Which of the two have I been spending my energy on?

Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer awaits the precious fruit of the soil—how patient he is for the fall and spring rains. You, too, be patient and strengthen your hearts, because the Lord’s coming is near.

James 5:7-8, BSB

Give the wait a morning shape

David says that in the morning he lays his request before God and then watches. Two verbs, in order. He asks, and then he takes up a position — the word is the one you would use for a lookout on a wall, someone whose whole job is to keep facing the horizon.

In a long wait, that is worth copying literally. Bring the request in the morning, in plain words, and then let it go for the day instead of carrying it around all afternoon. A wait becomes unbearable when it is a background process running twenty-four hours. Give it a time and a place.

In the morning, O LORD, You hear my voice; at daybreak I lay my plea before You and wait in expectation.

Salmo 5:3, BSB

Write it down instead of re-asking it

Habakkuk is told to write the vision plainly on tablets, because it is for an appointed time — and that even if it seems slow, it will come. The instruction is to make a record, not to keep repeating the complaint.

Practically: keep one page. Date the day you started asking. Write, in a line or two, each time something moves — a door that opens, a door that shuts, a change in what you want. In month eighteen, that page is the only thing standing between you and the feeling that nothing has happened at all. Memory is a poor witness in a long wait; a page is not.

Then the LORD answered me: “Write down this vision and clearly inscribe it on tablets, so that a herald may run with it. For the vision awaits an appointed time; it testifies of the end and does not lie. Though it lingers, wait for it, since it will surely come and will not delay.

Habakkuk 2:2-3, BSB

Quiet is allowed, and so is asking how long

Lamentations says it is good to wait quietly for God's salvation. That verse gets used to shut people up, which is almost the opposite of what the book does — the same author spends whole chapters saying out loud, at length, how bad it is.

So hold both. There is a quiet that is trust, and there is a silence that is just swallowing things, and they are not the same. If you have not told God how tired you are of this wait, you are not being patient. You are being polite.

The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

Lamentations 3:25-26, BSB

Guard against the cold, not just the delay

The psalm tells you to wait for the Lord, be strong, take heart, and wait — the instruction is doubled around a command about your courage. That is a hint about the real danger. Long waits rarely destroy faith with a single blow; they cool it, one skipped morning at a time, until you notice you have stopped expecting anything.

Paul's line about not growing weary in doing good is a wait instruction too: the harvest comes at the proper time, and the only way to miss it is to stop before it. Keep the small things running. The point of a five-minute morning during a long wait is not that it is impressive; it is that it is still there when the answer arrives.

• Keep one fixed practice, small enough to survive a bad week.
• Tell one person what you are waiting for, so someone can ask you about it.
• Watch for the day you stop praying about it — that day, pray about it.

Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Galatians 6:9, BSB