How to Get Through a Season of Waiting (When God's Timing Feels Like God's Silence)
Michael MaioShare
Nobody teaches you how to wait.
They teach you how to pray. How to read your Bible. How to serve. How to give. How to worship. But nobody sits you down and says, "Here is how to keep going when you have done everything right and the answer still has not come."
Because waiting is not glamorous. It does not make for a good sermon illustration. Nobody writes a worship song called "Still Sitting Here." But if you have ever been in a season where God's timing feels indistinguishable from God's silence, you know that waiting is one of the hardest, loneliest, most faith-testing things you will ever face.
And you are not doing it wrong. This is just what waiting feels like.
Why Waiting Feels Like Something Is Wrong
When you pray for something and nothing happens, the first thought is usually: "Am I doing something wrong?"
Maybe I am not praying hard enough. Maybe there is unconfessed sin. Maybe I do not have enough faith. Maybe God is punishing me. Maybe I misheard Him.
The enemy loves waiting seasons, because waiting creates a vacuum, and he fills it with doubt. Doubt is loudest in the space between the prayer and the answer.
But here is what the Bible shows, over and over: waiting is not a sign that something is wrong. It is a sign that something is in process.
Abraham waited twenty-five years for the promised son. Joseph waited thirteen years between the dream and the throne. David was anointed king as a teenager and did not sit on the throne until he was thirty. Moses spent forty years in the desert before the burning bush. Jesus Himself waited thirty years before starting His ministry.
None of them were being punished. All of them were being prepared.
The Difference Between Waiting and Being Stuck
There is a difference, and it matters.
Being stuck means nothing is happening. No growth. No movement. No change. Just stagnation.
Waiting, in the biblical sense, means something is happening that you cannot see yet. The farmer plants a seed and waits. The seed is not stuck. It is growing underground, invisible, silent, doing exactly what it was designed to do. But from the surface, it looks like nothing.
Your season might look like nothing from the surface. But God is rarely inactive when He is silent. He is more often doing the deep, underground, invisible work that will only make sense later.
Isaiah said it best: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." Not waste their strength. Renew it. Waiting, done right, is not a drain. It is a recharge.
What the Bible Says About God's Timing
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord." (Isaiah 55:8, ESV)
That verse is frustrating when you are in the middle of waiting. But it is also the most liberating thing in the Bible. Because it means God is not operating on your timeline. He is operating on a timeline you cannot see, with information you do not have, working toward an outcome that is better than the one you are begging for.
"For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end; it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay." (Habakkuk 2:3, ESV)
Notice: "If it seems slow." God acknowledges that it feels slow to you. He is not dismissing your frustration. He is telling you: just because it seems slow does not mean it is late. There is an appointed time. It has not been forgotten.
Five Things to Do While You Wait
Waiting is not passive. It is an active, daily decision. Here is what it looks like in practice.
1. Keep showing up.
The temptation in a waiting season is to disengage. Stop praying. Stop reading. Stop going to church. Stop trying. But this is the worst possible time to pull away from God. He is not the one who moved. Stay close. Pray. Read. Show up. Not because you feel like it. Because faithfulness is not a feeling. It is a decision.
2. Tell God the truth about how you feel.
You do not have to pretend you are fine. David did not. "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?" (Psalm 13:1) That is not a lack of faith. That is faith honest enough to say what it is actually feeling.
If you do not know how to start, the After Amen Prayer Journal{target="_blank"} was designed for exactly this: writing out the real, unpolished, unfiltered things you need to say to God.
3. Do the next right thing.
When the big answer is not coming, do the small thing in front of you. Answer the email. Serve where you are. Love the person next to you. Take care of your body. Clean the house. Call the friend. Do the next right thing, even when it feels insignificant. Faithfulness in the small things is how you prove you are ready for the big ones.
4. Stop comparing timelines.
Someone else got the job. Someone else had the baby. Someone else's prayer was answered in a week, and yours has been going for years. Comparison in a waiting season is poison. God is not running a race where the fastest prayer wins. He is writing a story, and your chapter is not behind schedule just because it is different from someone else's.
5. Remember what God has already done.
When the present is unclear, the past is evidence. Look back at the times God showed up. The prayer He answered three years ago. The door He opened when every other one was closed. The way He carried you through the last hard season. Write those down. Keep them close. They are proof that the God who was faithful before will be faithful again.
What Waiting Produces
James said something nobody in a waiting season wants to hear: "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness." (James 1:2-3, ESV)
Steadfastness. Endurance. The ability to keep going when everything in you wants to quit. That does not develop in easy seasons. It develops in waiting seasons.
And here is the thing about endurance: once you have it, nobody can take it away. The person who has waited on God and come through the other side has a faith that cannot be shaken by circumstances. Because they have already stood in the fire and watched God be faithful.
That is what waiting produces. Not weakness. Strength. Not doubt. Substance. Not less faith. Deeper faith.
One More Thing
If you are in the middle of it right now, hear this: God has not forgotten you. The silence is not absence. The waiting is not punishment. The timing is not broken.
He sees you. He knows what you need. He knows when you need it. And He is working on things you cannot see, in ways you cannot imagine, for reasons that will make sense when the timing is right.
Trust Him. Not because it is easy. Because He is worth it.
Keep going.
Keep Going
If you need a daily anchor in a waiting season, the Do Everything in Love: A 365-Day Devotional{target="_blank"} gives you one verse, one reflection, and one prayer every morning. It is the rhythm that keeps you connected when the silence is loud.
If you need space to write out what you are feeling, the Christian Gratitude Journal for Women{target="_blank"} or the Men's Prayer Journal{target="_blank"} give you room to be honest and find things to be thankful for even in the waiting.
And if your story involves a season where strong ran out and all you had left was faith, Deep Water: When Strong Runs Out{target="_blank"} was written from inside that season.
Let all that you do be done in love. (1 Corinthians 16:14)
Read next: What to Do When God Feels Silent (Because He Will)