When God Makes You Wait

When I was about four years old, I went through a stretch of serious separation anxiety. My family had moved a few times, and I became terrified my parents were going to leave me behind.

One day I came home to find movers carrying our couch out the door—we’d sold it—and, convinced this meant my parents were leaving, I ran and jumped on top of it, screaming that they weren’t taking my parents away.

Not long after that, I mistakenly got left at school one day. I stood there watching my friends get picked up one by one until it was just me.

For a while after that, drop-off at school sounded like this: Josh, We love you. We are coming back for you.

Do you promise?

We promise. We will not leave you here.

I think about that a lot when I think about waiting on God.

It’s one thing to trust him when you can see him working. It’s another thing entirely when you keep praying the same prayer over and over again and nothing seems to change.

That’s one reason Abraham’s story is so remarkable.

When Abraham was 75 years old, God promised to make him into a great nation. There was just one problem: Abraham and Sarah didn’t have any children. So they waited. And waited.

Twenty-five years passed between God’s promise and Isaac’s birth.

You’d expect Abraham’s faith to weaken over that kind of wait. Usually, the longer we wait, the harder it gets to believe.

But Paul describes something different.

Abraham knew the obstacles were real—his age, Sarah’s barrenness, none of it was lost on him. And yet:

“No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.” — Romans 4:20-21

Abraham didn’t just hold onto his faith while he waited. His faith grew while he waited.

Why?

Because his confidence was never ultimately in his circumstances. It was in the character of the One who made the promise.

That distinction matters. Biblical faith isn’t convincing yourself God will eventually give you whatever you want. He hasn’t promised us every outcome we desire.

Faith is trusting that God will do everything he promised to do.

Here’s what’s easy to miss about Abraham: He’s not just an example of patient faith. Genesis 12 isn’t just another chapter, and Abraham isn’t just another Bible character. His story is the hinge point where God begins to focus his plan to rescue the world through one special family—a family that would eventually bring us Jesus.

Abraham could only see a tiny piece of what God was doing. God was keeping a promise much bigger than Abraham could understand, on a timeline much longer than Abraham would have chosen.

Abraham waited 25 years for a son.

Israel waited more than 400 years to possess the land.

And 2000 years passed before the King from Judah was born.

God kept his word. But he rarely kept it on the timeline the people waiting would have chosen.

Maybe you’re waiting right now. For direction. For an answer. For a relationship to change. For a season to end. For something you’ve prayed about so many times you’re starting to wonder if anything is happening at all.

Let the wait teach you to trust him more deeply instead of convincing you he can’t be trusted.

Keep praying. Keep obeying. Keep remembering what he’s already done. Keep returning to what he promised.

Your confidence doesn’t rest in your ability to understand what God is doing, your preferred timeline, or even your ability to hold onto him.

It rests in the God who always keeps his word.

You may not know what God will do about the particular thing you’re waiting for. But you know what kind of God you’re waiting on.

And he can be trusted.