Wait on the Lord — especially when it’s hard

Waiting for the promises of God to come to pass in my life has been the most difficult part of my Christian journey. When I surrendered to Christ 23 years ago, there were several promises I read in the Bible that I was convinced were written for me. They never came to pass. And that caused me pain.

I have come to realize that I have been impatient with God and waiting on Him is not as easy as I thought. There were certain times when I prayed that I had assurance in my spirit that God had answered my prayers. What was compounding my challenge was that I had been expectant and anxious to experience the move of God every minute but most often nothing happened.

Worry and anxiety had made me ask God certain questions that I should not have asked Him. I remember there was a day I asked God, “Did you really save me? If you did, what do you benefit in seeing me suffering and why is it taking you too long to help me?” I never took God’s timing into consideration. Rather, I focused exclusively on my own calendar. “But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day” (2 Peter 3:8).

What we may perceive as a lifetime, God sees as one day or a thousand years. The challenge that most Christians face while waiting on God is that we want instant answers to our prayers even when God wants us to wait for a while. Waiting on God involves patience and unwavering faith with the understanding that God is too faithful to disappoint us at the appointed time. He makes all things beautiful.

There are some latent works of God in our lives during this time of waiting which, most often, we do not perceive. God usually uses this time to train, rebuild, refine, teach, equip, mature, and renew our lives and subdue our flesh. At the end of the waiting period, the result is always splendid.

There is no doubt that the process of waiting on God is difficult. In your waiting period, you will get tired, your challenges will be written all over you and people will mock you and ask, “Where is your God?” I strongly believe that this is true for every genuine Christian who is following the footsteps of Christ and waits on God for His will to be done.

During my waiting period, I stumbled across a verse that was of immense help to me: “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31). My understanding of this verse helped me to renew my strength to continue even when all hopes were lost and all energies gone.

All the characteristics that I acquired during my wilderness experience of waiting on God are what have equipped me today to reach places with the Gospel and love of Christ that I never would’ve imagined was possible.

God's route is the best. God allowed the Israelites to experience the wilderness to equip them for the battle ahead before their entry into the Promised Land. Many of them could not survive the wilderness experience because they were not ready to wait on God. When Christians wait on God, they should count it all as joy. God’s timing is the best, and God’s way should be our only way if we must accomplish God’s purpose here on earth.