If you’ve been a Christ follower for any extended period of time, I’m sure you’ve experienced the dreaded season of waiting. We live in such a fast paced society where we have access to whatever we want whenever we want it. We demand instant gratification, but we must be a people who resist the urge to place our desires above His own.

If you follow me on social media, you know that I’m in a season of waiting to leave my university in Minnesota to move to Dallas. This is one of, if not the biggest change of my life and I could not possibly be more excited. New home. New friends. New job. New connections. New opportunities. Out with the old and in with the new. And ever since the Lord placed it on my heart to move to Dallas in just a few short weeks, I’ve been learning what it means to wait well and wanted to share a few key points that the Lord has been pressing into my heart in this oh so weary season of waiting.

Whether you’re in a season of waiting for a spouse, a new job, financial provision, or whatever it may be, I pray that these points can be beneficial to you in your own walk with the Lord and season of waiting.

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Thy will be done, not my will be done.

This one is painful. As broken humans living in a broken world, it’s our natural tendency to lean towards satisfying our desires and place the Lord’s on the back-burner. But Jesus says “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). To be obedient followers of Christ, we must abandon our own will and say yes to His. It’ll hurt. It’ll be confusing. We may not understand. But we can’t forget that He is the author of our lives, so we must loosen our grip of the pen and offer it back to Him. Trust. He can write a much better story for your life than you can. Dear friend, give Him your “yes” and He’ll take care of the rest.

Release the need to be in control.

The moment we choose to take control, we’re putting ourselves in the Lord’s rightful spot on the throne. If you’re in the seat of Christ, you’re naturally going to experience crippling anxiety because you’re not meant to do it yourself–you’re not meant to be in control of your own life. Dear friend, dethrone yourself from His rightful spot and allow Him to be the author of your life. Let your life depend on the creator of it. Self dependency will always result in anxiety. Just submit. If you’re faithful to surrender it to Him, your circumstance will never be out of His control.

A person who is hidden in Christ cannot be shaken by their circumstance.

Dear friend, find that secret place with Christ and never leave it. In my own walk with the Lord, I’ve found that the more intimate I am with Him and the more I nourish myself in scripture, the more everything in my life has the tendency to fall into place exactly how He intended it to. If you’re not consistently and actively hidden in Christ and in scripture, you will quickly be shaken by a circumstance that’s out of your control. Intimacy builds trust. We’ll have a much more difficult time trusting Him if we’re not intimate with Him.

He’s not asking for your understanding, He’s asking for your obedience.

Oof. This one is deeply convicting to me. I’m the type of person who has a hard time saying “yes” when I have no clue what I’m saying yes to, but He doesn’t ask for our understanding–He asks for our obedience. Release the need to understand immediately–that will come later. And if it doesn’t, remember that your reward isn’t in your understanding, it’s in your obedience.

If you know the “Who,” you’ll be okay with not knowing the “how” or “why.”

If you have an intimate relationship with the Lord, you know that He promises to work all things for our good and for His glory. You won’t need to know the how or why because you know the Who. Let knowing Him be enough.

You may not feel the fruit of your patience, but that doesn’t mean it’s not being produced.

Galatians 6:9 says “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” My friend, be comforted in this. You may not feel as if anything is happening, but take heart–Heaven is constantly interceding on your behalf and working all things together just the way they’re supposed to. You don’t have to feel the fruit to trust that it’s being produced.

Seek Him in your waiting.

Lamentations 3:25 says “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.” My friend, I know how easy it is to look to everything and everyone else to fill the void of whatever it is you’re waiting for, but He promises us that He is good to those who wait for Him. Resist the temptation to seek fulfillment outside of Him because it doesn’t exist. It’s not about Him keeping something from you, it’s about Him working something through you.

Don’t waste your wait.

Friend, please be intentional with the wait. The Lord has you there for a reason much greater than you may ever comprehend. Get the most out of it that you possibly can! Use it as a learning opportunity. Use it as a growing opportunity. Use it as an opportunity to go deeper in Scripture than you ever have before. Use it as an opportunity to be closer to His heart than you ever imagined you could be. Don’t wish the wait away–cherish it. It’s a precious season.

Trade your complaining for thanksgiving.

I know you’ve heard this one before, but I’m going to say it anyway–your season of waiting is a gift. If you give a gift to someone you love and they complain about it because it’s not ideal for them in the moment, wouldn’t you be hurt? I know I would–so let’s not treat God that way. It may not be the gift we desired in the moment, but the more we trade our complaining into thanksgiving, the more we will see His hand upon whatever it is we’re longing for.

It hurts because it’s sanctifying.

Waiting requires patience and patience teaches us to die to ourselves and our own desires. It allows us to embrace His longings and throw ours away. When we wait, we go against the natural tendency of the modern world where we have everything at our fingertips, but we can’t choose express shipping on a blessing He has in store for us. Colossians 3:5 tells us to “Put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.” And dang… this hurts. But the more we put to death our earthly desires, the more we’ll reflect Christ in all things we say and do.

Resist the temptation of urgency.

Friend, be okay with things taking a little longer than you anticipated. In the season of waiting, pour out and be filled up as much as you can. Not everything has to happen now, and that’s okay. He’s not a God that makes us wait for the sake of waiting–He’s a God who makes us wait because He knows what’s best when we don’t. He faithfully and abundantly provides when we surrender to Him rather than rush Him.

Desire Him more than you desire what you’re waiting for.

Remove your eyes from the miracle and place them on the Miracle Maker. He is your miracle–not something He can do for you. Keep this mindset. Colossians 3:1 says “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” Keep your heart set on the things of Christ and the wait will be much easier.

 

He knows when you’re ready, not you.

He requires us to wait because He knows when we’re ready–we don’t. I often tell the Lord “Lord, I’m ready for this season to be over with” but in reality, if the season isn’t over with, I’m not ready for it to be–I just deceive myself to think I am. The creator of your heart knows what’s best for it. He knows when is best to receive the very thing you’re waiting for. Trust this and dear friend, don’t lose heart in the weariness.

Don’t miss out on a blessing because you settled for what you thought was best.

Oh I’m so guilty of this. I’ve placed my desires before His more times than I’d like to admit and am still reaping the consequences of those choices to this day. But the good news is, when we finally come to a place of surrender, He restores to better than before. Don’t settle out of impatience.

Your time may never come. Be okay with that.

The healing may not come. The spouse may not come. The finances may not come. That job you’ve been hoping for may not come. If it doesn’t, are you okay with that? Remember–He is better than the thing you’re longing for. Even if it doesn’t come, He is still worthy, and He is still oh so good.

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“Better a patient person than a warrior;
one with self-control than one who takes a city.” / Proverbs 16:32