Wait and hope for and expect the Lord; be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout and enduring. Yes, wait for and hope for and expect the Lord.
Psalm 27:14 (AMPC)
It is very common for people to misunderstand what it truly means to wait on God. We may see waiting as a passive, non-active time when our life is put on hold. Most of us have a difficult time doing absolutely nothing, and if we view waiting on God in the wrong way, we may find that our misunderstanding leaves us disabled when it comes to actually doing it.
A deeper study of the original language that we get our word “wait” from reveals that waiting on God is actually intended to be very active spiritually. Although God may ask us to be still as far as trying to change our circumstances is concerned, He is not asking us to do nothing. He wants us to have an attitude of expectancy regarding what He is doing, and He wants us to be hopeful and expect Him to do a marvelous work in our lives. He wants us to thank Him for what He is doing even before we see it with our natural eyes.
Our thoughts and attitudes can keep us very joyful while we are in God’s waiting room, if we manage them properly. Consider these two types of thinking and see which one you believe would produce joy:
There is this type of thinking:
• I’ve been waiting so long that I just don’t think I can wait much longer.
• Nothing is happening!
• I feel like God has forgotten all about me.
• I’m afraid there is no answer for my problem.
• I might as well just give up.
And there is this type of thinking:
• I’m so excited to see what God is going to do.
• I believe God is working even though I don’t see a change yet.
• God loves me and I know He will take care of my problem.
• Psalm 139 says that God is thinking about me all the time, so I know He has not forgotten me.
• I will not live in fear and I will never give up!
It is very obvious which type of thinking would produce the most joy. That being the case, why do we tend toward negative thoughts and attitudes? The mind of the flesh, spoken of by the apostle Paul in Romans 8:6 (AMPC), “is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit,” and it is based on reasoning and logic that leads to sin; therefore, if we follow it, we have no option but to make decisions based on how things in our circumstances look. But if we think with the mind of the Spirit, which is spoken of in the same verse, we are promised life and peace in our soul. With the mind of the Spirit, we can think as God does, and our thoughts will be filled with hope no matter how things might look.
We can think with the mind of the flesh or the mind of the Spirit, and the choice is ours. Sadly, many people live their entire lives merely thinking whatever drops into their minds, never realizing that their enemy, Satan, is the source of all their negative, hopeless, fearful, and doubt-filled thinking. They never realize that they can do their own thinking if they choose to by casting down wrong thoughts that don’t agree with God’s Word and replacing them with ones that do.
In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, Paul describes a time when he and other believers in Christ experienced very difficult circumstances. He said they were “hedged in (pressed) on every side [troubled and oppressed in every way], but not cramped or crushed… perplexed and unable to find a way out, but not driven to despair… pursued (persecuted and hard driven), but not deserted [to stand alone]… struck down to the ground but never struck out and destroyed” (4:8–9 [AMPC]). He also tells us why:
Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting.
2 Corinthians 4:18 (AMPC)
Paul and the people he ministered to knew they had bad circumstances, and I am sure they saw them, but they were also looking at something else. They saw Jesus and His promises of deliverance and victory. They looked not only with the natural eye, but with the spiritual eye. They looked with their hearts at the things they could not see with their natural eyes, yet they believed they were very real.
We believe in God, even though we cannot see Him with our natural eyes. We believe in angels, we believe in gravity, and on cloudy days when we cannot see it, we believe the sun is there. There are actually many things that we strongly believe in although we don’t see them, so why can’t we believe that God is working while we are waiting even though we don’t see any evidence yet? We simply have not trained ourselves to do so, but that can change.
Our real life is within us. What goes on inside of us (our thoughts and attitudes) is more important than our circumstances. No matter how difficult our circumstances are around us, if we maintain a good attitude and dwell on positive thoughts based on God’s Word, we can experience peace and joy. I believe a person incarcerated in prison who has learned to think positively and has a good attitude can be freer than a person who is living out in society but is filled with hatred, bitterness, and a negative attitude. Anyone can improve the quality of his life immediately simply by thinking on things that are good and maintaining an attitude of hope.
We can have good circumstances, lots of money, a good job, and a good family, yet still have a miserable life if we are ungrateful, selfish, and perhaps angry toward someone who offended us. But we can also have difficult circumstances, live alone, and have barely enough money to get by, yet still have peace and joy if we are thankful and spend our time trying to be a blessing to others.
Your attitude and thoughts belong to you, and nobody can make you have bad ones if you don’t want to!
There is no evidence in Scripture that Joseph had anything other than hope and a good attitude during his thirteen years of waiting on God to bring deliverance to him. He had a dream for his life and he did not give up on it even though nothing in his circumstances indicated that it would ever come true. (You can read the story of Joseph in Genesis 37–50.)
Abraham waited twenty years to see the fulfillment of the promise that God gave him that he would have a child. Twenty years is a long time to be in God’s waiting room.
I am certain that he had many opportunities to give up, but we find in Scripture that even though he had no reason to hope, he hoped in faith that his dreams would come true and that he would see the fulfillment of God’s promises. Even when he considered (looked at and thought about) the impotence of his own body and the barrenness of Sarah’s womb, no unbelief or distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God. He grew strong as he gave praise and glory to God. Praise is a narrative or tale of the goodness of God, so Abraham must have been thinking of the things that God had done for him throughout his life. Glory is the manifestation of all the excellence of God, so once again Abraham must have been considering and pondering all the great things God had done in the past. His choice to remember and think on good things kept him strong while he was in God’s waiting room (see Romans 4:18–21).
Are you in God’s waiting room right now in your life? Have you perhaps been there a long, long time? Has it been much longer than you expected it would be? How well are you waiting? What are your thoughts, and what is your attitude? I urge you to choose thoughts and attitudes that will enable you to wait patiently on God who does all things well.
Thankfully, hope is not something we must wait to feel in order to have it. It is something we can decide to have no matter how difficult our circumstances may seem. God promises that if we will become prisoners of hope, He will restore double our former blessings to us (see Zechariah 9:12). In other words, if you are willing to be locked up with hope to the point where you are so hopeful that no matter what happens you cannot stop hoping, then God will restore anything that you have lost in your life and give you a double blessing.
Hope is not merely wishing things will turn out well; it is a force of power that produces breakthroughs when we diligently hold on to it. While we are waiting, one of the most helpful things we can do to keep us strong in faith and filled with hope is diligently study and meditate on God’s Word (His promises). The Word of God has power inherent in it that will encourage and empower those who put their hope in Him.
The psalmist David, a young man who also waited twenty years to see the promise that God gave him come to pass, said this:
I wait for the Lord, I expectantly wait, and in His word do I hope.
Psalm 130:5 (AMPC)
Hope needs to have a basis. There needs to be a reason to hope, and David said that his reason was the Word of God. David simply put His trust in God’s faithfulness to fulfill His Word.
Why is the study and meditation of God’s Word so helpful? It is seed, and seed always produces after its own kind. When the Word is sown in a heart that is fertile ground (meek and tender), it cannot do anything other than produce a harvest. We see this principle throughout the Word of God, but Mark chapter 4 gives us insight into this truth. Speaking of seeds, it says the following:
And those sown on the good (well-adapted) soil are the ones who hear the Word and receive and accept and welcome it and bear fruit—some thirty times as much as was sown, some sixty times as much, and some [even] a hundred times as much.
Mark 4:20 (AMPC)
I strongly urge you to read, study, listen to, and meditate on God’s Word as often as possible, and do so with a believing heart, one that is meek (gentle and kind). James tells us that when the Word is “implanted and rooted” in our hearts, it has the power to save our souls (see James 1:21 [AMPC]). God’s Word changes us and enables us to be what God wants us to be and to do what He wants us to do. When we are in His waiting room, He does not want us to give up, and His Word will give us the power to stand strong until His appointed time comes for our breakthrough.
Put your hope in God and in His Word! Expect to hear good news at any moment! When we live with hope, we can see deliverance from our problems, and we can enjoy the journey.
Wait for and expect the Lord and keep and heed His way, and He will exalt you to inherit the land…
Psalm 37:34 (AMPC)
Waiting with hope is one aspect of successfully seeing victory in our lives, but waiting and keeping His ways is another aspect that must be considered. Hopefully, we all know the importance of obedience, but we should also realize that no matter how difficult it might be in good times, it is even more difficult when we find ourselves in God’s waiting room, enduring difficult circumstances, and we have not seen any change in a long time. During those times, we don’t always feel like doing the right things—like being kind and loving to others, or serving and giving.
Displaying the fruit of the Spirit is much more difficult when we have stress and pressure in our lives. It can even be difficult to want to pray or study God’s Word; however, these are the times when it is the most important. Doing the right thing while the right thing is not happening to us is possibly one of the most powerful things that we can do. Paul tells us not to be weary in doing what is right, for in due time we shall reap if we don’t faint (see Galatians 6:9). I want to take time to encourage you to keep on doing what is right while you are in God’s waiting room! Do it because you love Him and because you appreciate all that He has done and is doing for you even right now.
God wants us to walk by faith, and walking by faith means that we walk not by sight or how we feel, but by what we know to be right. And doing what is right simply because it is right is a very powerful thing. It clearly declares that we trust God and are committed to honoring Him with our actions no matter what our circumstances may be.
When we are steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, we are promised that our work will not be in vain (see 1 Corinthians 15:58). God always sees faithfulness, even if no one else does. And those who remain steadfast during trials will receive the victor’s crown of life (see James 1:12).
Let us trust God and look forward to our reward, even while we are in God’s waiting room. Let us expect good things to happen to us, and let us rejoice in our hope that all things are possible with God!