Waiting Established on the Gospel

Naomi Middleton

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Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” - Psalm 37:4-7 (ESV)

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No matter what we’re waiting for, the process can feel heavier than we expect. I’ll be honest - patience has never come naturally to me. I tend to believe that if something can be done now, it should be done now.

When we moved into our first home, I was determined to refinish the hardwood floors before moving in. Anyone who has done that knows - it’s messy, time-consuming, and not something you want to deal with after your furniture is inside. With only four days before move-in, I felt the pressure.

I rushed to the store, grabbed a sander, stain, and polyurethane, and got to work. The sanding alone took two full days—already putting me behind schedule. On day three, I stained the floors, and they looked incredible. Everything was coming together.

But then came the final step: applying polyurethane. The instructions were clear—wait 24 hours after staining. But I didn’t feel like I had 24 hours. The floors looked dry after 12, and I convinced myself that was good enough. It wasn’t.

As soon as I applied the polyurethane, a cloudy white residue began to form. The stain hadn’t fully cured, and the trapped gases ruined the finish. What should have been the final step turned into rework, frustration, and a result that never quite looked right. Looking back, the issue wasn’t my effort - it was my unwillingness to wait. I tried to rush a process that required patience, and I paid for it.

And if waiting is hard in something as small as a floor project, it’s even harder when it touches the deeper parts of our lives - our hopes, our prayers, our longings. In those seasons, waiting can feel less like inconvenience and more like grief. It can feel like something is slipping away.

However, as I have walked through different seasons of waiting, I have learned that waiting isn’t just about time passing - it’s about what’s happening in our hearts while we wait. And sometimes, the most beautiful outcomes are formed not just in the answer - but in the waiting itself.

We were Created to Wait (Creation)

This might come as a surprise but waiting isn’t a result of the Fall. In fact, we were created to wait on God. From the very beginning, humanity was designed to live in daily dependence on the Creator—trusting His voice, walking in step with His timing, and receiving His provision moment by moment. In Eden, there was no fear of delay, no anxiety over outcomes, and no striving to control the future. Waiting wasn’t burdensome—it was simply part of a trusting relationship with a faithful God.

God didn’t create us to be self-sufficient or to know all things in advance. He created us to walk with Him in step-by-step faith, to look to Him for direction, and to trust that His timing is always right. In that sense, waiting was never meant to be a punishment—it was a gift, a rhythm of life that kept us rooted in God’s presence and guided by His wisdom.

Even before sin entered the world, we see hints of this. Adam and Eve were called to tend the garden, to be fruitful, and to multiply - but they would not see the fullness of that fruit in an instant. They were given a purpose that would unfold over time, under God's direction. Their lives were meant to be shaped by a patient dependence on Him.

Our Brokeness in Waiting (Fall)

Even though waiting isn’t a result of the Fall, sin has certainly made it much harder. In the perfection of Eden, waiting would have been marked by complete trust in God’s character, timing, and provision. There would have been no fear, no doubt, and no striving - just a quiet confidence in God's goodness. But after the Fall, everything changed. Now, waiting often brings out the restless and rebellious parts of our hearts.

It causes us to forget God’s goodness and doubt His faithfulness. Instead of turning to Him, we can become bitter, disillusioned, or even depressed. Our unmet desires can tempt us to question if God truly sees us or cares.

Waiting exposes our desire for control. Rather than surrendering the outcome to God, we often try to take matters into our own hands. We might force solutions, chase shortcuts, or compromise what we know is right. Deep down, sin whispers that God is holding out on us, that His timing is flawed, and that we must act to secure what we want. Instead of trusting, we strive. Instead of resting, we worry. Instead of running to God, we drift away. This is the deep effect of sin on the human heart—and waiting simply brings it to the surface.

The Fruit of Waiting (Redemption)

In a broken world, how are we supposed to approach seasons of waiting? David wisely wrote, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart..Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” Psalm 37:4,7 (NIV).

This kind of waiting isn’t passive. It’s not about sitting still and hoping for the best—it’s an active choice to delight in God, even when we don’t understand what He’s doing. It means trusting Him with our unmet desires, our disappointments, and our pain.

And this is where transformation begins. When we stop resisting the waiting and start embracing it, God does His deeper work within us. He reshapes our desires, deepens our dependence on Him, and aligns our hearts with His greater purposes.

In seasons of waiting, we can trust that God is writing a bigger and better story than we can see. Waiting is often the very tool He uses to refine our hearts, strengthen our faith, and prepare us for what lies ahead. The outcome may not look exactly as we imagined, but it will produce lasting fruit.

When we place our faith in His timing and His purpose, waiting begins to shift—from frustration to hopeful anticipation. And in that shift, we learn not just to endure the wait, but to truly embrace it.