The Waiting Room
It can often feel like the loudest room in the house of your life where competing thoughts fight to fill the voids. All too easily, you find the thoughts that tell you to trust God and His timing quickly become silenced by the thoughts of fear, doubt, and worry. I want to stop you right there before you let those destructive thoughts take precedence over God's Truth.
Living in the waiting room can be daunting, yes, but I can tell you with confidence that it can be the best room in the house if you let it. Keyword being if you let it. This is a choice you have to make moving forward.
If you're in a season of waiting—maybe it's waiting for a job, a relationship, a promotion, an opportunity to move your life forward, etc—take heart for you are not alone. I, for one, am right there with you.
Here is a myth I want to bust right now that waiting means being idle—waiting is not passive. It is active. Waiting on the Lord does not mean you sit around waiting for God to bring whatever it is you're waiting for. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Waiting on the Lord requires patience, trust, and proactiveness.
Here are a few things I've learned in my season(s) of waiting...
Waiting builds character
In seasons of waiting, God is preparing us for the promise. A lot of times the reason we're placed in our season of waiting is that God is still working something in us to prepare us for what He has already ready for us.
Look at the life of Joseph in the Bible. He was 17 when God gave him a dream, but it wasn't until he was 30 that it became a reality. During the in-between years, God was building Joseph's character to prepare him for the position He would be promoted to in Egypt. (Read Genesis 37, 39-41)
Waiting creates an environment that facilitates growth for patience, perseverance, humility, and so much more.
Waiting builds trust
Trusting in the Lord is easy when you see answered prayers right away, but the real level of your trust comes to light in moments when trusting feels impossible. If there's one thing I've learned to do in these moments it's to recount the moments when God showed Himself trustworthy in my life.
There are so many instances that reveal the trustworthiness of God (Ps. 22:4-5). Really it comes down to having the faith to trust in His Word. And this I can guarantee you, His Word never fails and it never returns to Him without fulfilling its purpose (Isaiah 55:11).
Waiting creates opportunity
Often times, we see waiting as unproductive, but really waiting in the Lord can be the most productive season of your life. Let me put this in the context of singleness because that is one of the most common topics of waiting.
While waiting for the right person to come into your life, use your season of singleness to find opportunities to grow as an individual, to be confident in your aloneness with God, to be productive with the sum amount of time you're given not having to include another person into the equation of your life.
Instead of seeing it as time wasted, see it as time given to use for self-improvement and furthering the Kingdom.
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Yes, waiting is difficult and it challenges us to confront parts of ourselves we otherwise overlook when given what we want, but waiting is worth it. When the promise finally meets the waiting, whatever that promise looks like for you, you will find that God was orchestrating everything perfectly the entire time.
So adorn your waiting room with prayer, God-honoring fruits, and tapestries of Christ-like character. Let the waiting room be the best room in your house and see how God will honor your faithful stewardship.
Your promise is just around the corner.