“Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Yes wait for the Lord” (Psalm 27:14).
The waiting period between when we pray and when God answers is the place where our faith is actually brought to life. It can feel excruciating when we are asked to wait for long periods of time before hearing an answer from God. We often will beg God to change our circumstances during difficulty waiting periods, but often God may actually be trying to change us and grow our faith during these times.
This can be a very scary place, but it can also be a place of tremendous growth where we learn total dependence on the Lord. This can be a place where we experience the most growth in our faith. In these times and places of confusion in our life, when our fear and doubt can overwhelm us, and where all of our inadequacies come to the forefront and we must depend more deeply on God and His provisions than ever before, can be great seasons as well. But let’s not sugarcoat it; when you are in this place it is very scary and very stressful. However, it will produce endurance and strength if we don’t give up and if we don't waste the waiting experience. Great wisdom is imparted to us by God during these times. We can feel a direct lifeline to Heaven which courses through our whole bodies and invigorates us when we most need it.
While we wait on God to answer, we can search our own hearts to confess any sin that may hinder an answer to our prayer. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends You and lead me along the path of everlasting life” (Psalm 139:23-24). During the difficult long periods of our lives, when all hope can seem lost and we can feel at rock bottom, we are really only left with two choices; We can run to God or we can run from God.
In all of our flesh, we may want to blame God for making us suffer or become anxious because the answers we've sought haven’t come just yet. I have experienced this level of anxiety before, and it’s not pleasant. But sometimes God can use our hopelessness as a way to humble us and draw us closer to Him. So, before we choose to flee from God, we should really instead pray for more strength to endure the waiting, and to draw closer to Him, realizing that if we run out in our own strength and with our limited knowledge and wisdom, we most likely will make decisions that aren’t very wise. We are usually closer than we think to the answer being provided if we can just hang in there a bit longer.
This is the lesson that we can also glean from reading about King David during his waiting periods. He eventually surrendered to God and tried his best to seek Him more intimately, even while screaming in his flesh for a resolution to come forth. He looked inward at his own soul, instead of turning outward towards his own fleshly understanding and desire. David learned to be grateful that God hadn’t destroyed him for his past sins during these difficult periods, and turning his attention away from his own desires to an honest repentance and grateful heart that his sins hadn’t been dealt with in a way that they deserved, allowed David to have a grateful heart which sustained him. It turned his attention off of his problems and onto God’s goodness and faithfulness, and that proved to be a cathartic tonic for David’s heart.
Spiritual warfare is ongoing, and it is sometimes a thought to thought and a moment by moment spiritual battle. As CS Lewis said, every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counterclaimed by satan. The spiritual battle we are facing is that real and that intense. Ephesians 6:12 confirms that the battles we are in are real as believers and our way above our pay grade when it says “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” One thing King David knew and I have also learned through experience is that we cannot win the battle if we don’t understand the battle. This is a great mindset for us to have when we are encountering the storms of life and the trials that accompany our waiting periods. Hold on, God "will never leave you or forsake you," as Hebrews 13;5 says.