5 Things to Remember When You Are Waiting on God
I have a confession to make. I don’t like waiting in lines. If I walk into a store or if I see a drive-thru with a long line, I will go home. I’d rather go hungry than wait in a long line (I know that is bad, but confession is good for the soul.) Long lines are like a curse to me, and I avoid them like the plague.
While that might work for grocery shopping or grabbing a quick bite to eat, that mentality does not work when you are waiting on God. Sometimes you must wait for God to answer your prayer or change your situation, and your impatience doesn’t speed God up. So rather than frustrate yourself or leave the line, I want you to remember some things to do when you are waiting on God. If you remember these things, it will make the process a whole lot smoother.
Understand the Waiting Place
There is a gap of time between when you pray and when the answer comes, or when God makes a promise, and when the fulfillment of the promise comes. I call this the waiting place. The challenge of the waiting place is you don’t know how long you are going to be there.
For example, Abraham received a promise that he would have a son and he waited twenty-five years for that promise to be fulfilled. Joseph had a dream about his family bowing down to him and that took thirteen years to come to pass. David was anointed the next king of Israel and it took about fifteen years before he ascended to the throne. Even Jesus said he was coming back soon, and that’s taken more than 2,000 years and we are still counting.
We must never forget God does not operate on our timetable, so we are forced to wait on his, and this is where the challenge comes in. Since there is a waiting place for all of us, how you navigate in this space is critical, so you don’t lose heart or your faith in the process.
5 Things to Remember When You Are Waiting on God
1. Recognize This Is Where the Battle Is Fought
What is interesting about waiting is typically no one has a problem with the promises of God; the problem is waiting for them to be fulfilled. Sometimes praying the prayer is the easy part. It’s waiting for the answer that becomes difficult. But the waiting place is where this battle happens. This is where you fight to keep believing. Where you experience all the ups, downs, doubts, and discouragements.
It’s in this place where your faith can be as high as Mount Everest one day and as low as Death Valley the next. This is where faith and doubt, hope and fear, expectation and worry all exist inside you, and you may even question whether God will answer or come through. However, you will not get to the answer if you don’t get through the waiting. So be aware the waiting place is where the battle is, and prepare yourself because you may have to fight while you wait.
2. Recognize Waiting Is an Action Word
We often think of waiting in terms of sitting and doing nothing. However, that is not how it works in God’s economy. Waiting means you continue pressing forward until you see the answer God has promised, because there is an expectancy that comes with waiting.
- Waiting is the widow who goes and borrows as many empty jars as she can find because she is expecting God to fill them with oil.
- Waiting is when you prepare the way because you are expecting God’s promise to be fulfilled.
- Waiting is going to get a license before God blesses you with the car
- Waiting is getting pre-approved for the house when you have no money for the down payment
- Waiting is when you start the business or ministry before anyone ever shows up
- Waiting is when you put your faith into action because you are expecting God to deliver on what he has promised.
“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7).
When you are waiting on God, you are still asking, seeking, and knocking because waiting is not a passive place, but it is a place of action believing God will do what he has said.
3. Remember it Is Impossible for God to Lie
When you are waiting on God – especially because you don’t know how long it will take – you can begin to ask questions. Did I hear you correctly? Did you say what you really said? Are you really going to do what you said? Have you changed your mind? In these moments you must remind yourself of an unchangeable truth – it is impossible for God to lie.
“God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us” (Hebrew 6:17-18).
God will not lie to you because he can’t. God is truth and every word he has spoken will always be true. This is the reason you can believe everything God has said. If he has given you a promise, you can be certain it is true because he cannot lie.
One of the tricks of the enemy is to get you to question what God has said and this trick started in the garden. What did Satan ask Eve? Did God really say? (Gen. 3:1). The enemy loves to throw these darts at you causing you to lose hope, faith, and trust in what God has said. If you ever feel tempted to fall for this trick, then remember the truth of Hebrews – it is impossible for God to lie.
I know some people who are part of fraternities. Some of these fraternities have a practice of branding the logo of the fraternity onto the body of those who become members of the fraternity. This is painful, but when they do this, it forever identifies and reminds them of the organization they belong to. I encourage you to brand these truths into your heart and your spirit. As you are waiting, you will have a forever reminder that God cannot lie, and if he has promised it, he will not change his mind.
4. God’s Promises Are an Anchor for Your Soul
“This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls” (Hebrews 6:19a).
If you have ever seen a big ocean liner, cruise ship or even a little tugboat, they all come with an anchor. The whole purpose of dropping an anchor is to keep the vessel from drifting away due to the current or wind. The anchor fixes the vessel to a certain position.
This is the role God’s promises play for your soul. They keep you from drifting away when the winds and currents of life come, and they hold you steady when you are waiting. The reason the anchor is necessary is because sometimes the storms are rough, and the temptation is to give up and drift away. However, when you fix your position to Jesus and his promises, he gives you the hope to stand strong and anchored as you wait for him to come through on your behalf.
When you are in the waiting place, you need to get yourself an anchor. The beauty of the anchor is that even if you want to drift, you can’t because you are chained to the anchor. As you wait, find a promise of God, anchor your soul to it, and allow that promise to keep you fixed no matter what happens around you. Things may be moving around you, but you will stand secure.
5. God’s Promise Leads You into His Presence
“This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary” (Hebrews 6:19).
In Israel only once per year, on Yom Kippur, could the high priest and only the high priest enter the inner sanctuary, also known as the holy of holies or most holy place. He had to go through an extensive ritual just to enter because this is where God’s presence dwelt. If the high priest went in without being properly prepared, he died. They tied a rope around his ankle just in case he died while in there so they could drag him out.
The beauty of God’s promises are they lead you right into his presence. What his presence does is it solidifies the anchors of his promises that are tied to your soul. You cannot get through the waiting places in your life if you don’t spend time in God’s presence.
Have you ever noticed that when you get into God’s presence, your anxiety goes away, your fear diminishes, and your worries seem to cease? This happens because you are reminding yourself how good God is and how faithful he is. When you do that, hope is restored in your soul and you can keep going.
His promises are designed to lead you into his presence. His presence is where you drop the weight of everything you are carrying and pick up his yoke and his burden, which the Bible says are easy and light. His presence will get you through the waiting place.
Final Thought
If you are in a waiting place today, anchor yourself to God’s promise and know that he has not lied to you. Don’t wait on God with worry, but wait with expectation and make preparation because God will do what he said he will do. I can’t tell you when it will happen, I just know it will because it is impossible for God to lie.
“Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!” (Psalm 27:14).
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Photo credit: ©Getty Images/PIKSEL
Originally published July 16, 2025.
