Waiting with or for God?
What Are You Waiting For? Learning to Wait on God in the Hardest Seasons
Have you ever felt like God just isn't moving fast enough? Like you've been patient, you've prayed, you've done everything right — and still nothing? I want to tell you something this morning that God put on my heart, something I almost missed even after years of preaching and pouring over Scripture. The way most of us think about waiting on God is completely wrong — and it's costing us everything.
The Question God Is Asking You
We've been in a series asking questions from Scripture. We looked at God asking Elijah, "What are you doing here?" We looked at God asking Adam and Eve, "Where are you?" Today, I want to end with this question: What are you waiting for?
We're in Isaiah, chapter 40 — a turning point for the prophet Isaiah. For 39 chapters, Isaiah had been warning the nation of Israel that because of their sin, they were going into exile. Armies were coming. Jerusalem was going to fall. And Isaiah was right. But then something shifts in chapter 40. Isaiah says, yes, we're going into exile — but remember who your God is.
Starting in Isaiah 40:27, Isaiah writes to the children of Israel who are wondering if God even sees them: "Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, 'My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God'?"
Has anybody been in a season like that? You've got trials, you've got everything falling apart, and you wonder — is God even aware?
God Is Aware, and God Is Able
Isaiah answers that question directly in Isaiah 40:28: "Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable."
Yes, God is aware. What he knows and what he sees is unsearchable — it's beyond anything we can imagine. He knows your tomorrow and then some. He knows the very end of your days. He knows everything in between. And by the way, he even knew you before you began.
We have to get this in our minds when we go into the darkness, when we go into our seasons of weariness: God is aware, and he is able.
Then in Isaiah 40:29, we read: "He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength." Those who have already failed. Those that have already said, "I can't go on." Those who said, "There's no hope for me." God says, I want to give you power. Even if you've already given up, he hasn't given up on you. ‘My tank is empty!’ Well, there's a God who can refill that tank and then some.
What "Waiting" Really Means
Here's where I have to be honest with you. I was on sabbatical, climbing over a thousand steps up a mountain, telling God, "I'm coming, I'm coming." And as I climbed, I kept hearing this word — just one word: wait.
I kept repeating Isaiah 40:31: "Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength." I probably said that line a hundred times on the climb. When I got to the top, I sat there alone, watching eagles circling in the valley below, eating my uncrustables — and then God told me something that stopped me cold.
He said, "You've got it wrong. You're missing something."
See, we think of waiting like a doctor's waiting room. You sit there, scroll your phone, play Candy Crush, and just pass the time until God finally moves. But that is not what the Hebrew word for "wait" means. The Hebrew word is about braiding together — like strands of rope woven into one.
God is the big rope. And you and I are supposed to be braided together with him. So that when God begins to move — even the smallest movement — I sense it. I know it. I'm so intimately woven with God that any movement he makes, even though nobody else can see it, I can feel it.
My movement away from God pulls me out of that alignment. I'm no longer waiting with him. And that's why so many of us panic — because we've lost that connection. We wonder, "God, are you moving? God, where are you?" Because we've lost the weight of being actually tied together.
Even Jesus, in the garden before his crucifixion, told his closest disciples — tarry with me, wait with me. And what did they do? They disconnected and went to sleep. God isn't saying, "Just wait for me." He's saying, "Be engaged with me."
As Isaiah 64:4 says, "From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him."
Mounted Up Like Eagles
When I was watching those eagles from the mountaintop, something clicked. They weren't flapping their wings. They were just feeling the wind — circling higher and higher, completely intimate with what was carrying them. Then in an instant, one of them dove from way up there to the valley floor in seconds, without a single flap.
It wasn't by his own strength. And God said to me, that's what I want for you. Isaiah 40:31 says those who wait on the Lord "shall mount up with wings like eagles." There's an intimacy with the wind — with the Spirit of God — that we're missing. We fight the wind instead of feeling it. We exhaust ourselves trying to do it all on our own.
In Exodus 19, God told the children of Israel, "You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself." But then God changes this. He says — I don't just want to carry you anymore. I want to give you the wings. I want you to be so intimate with my presence that you move with me.
Running the Race Without Burning Out
Isaiah 40:31 also says those who wait "shall run and not be weary." As a runner, I know there's a moment called the runner's high — usually hits around mile seven or eight for me, then again around mile fourteen. All of a sudden, your breathing is right, your heart rate settles, your pace is perfect. You feel like you could run forever.
God wants you to experience that in your spiritual life. But here's the thing about long-distance running — if you only focus on the finish line, you'll burn out. Experienced runners set milestones. They watch their pace. They look for the small markers along the way.
Too often we're crying out, "God, will my kid ever be saved? Will I ever see this situation change?" And we're looking so hard at the major goal that we miss the minor things God has already done along the way. If we were truly braided with him, we would see it. We'd feel it. But we've missed where he's been moving.
The Arrow in the Bow
God woke me up Thursday, in the middle of the night, with one more picture. You and I are the arrow. And God is the bow. If his people will just be intimate with him — just settle into his hands — then he's the one bringing the tension. He's the one loading it up. He's the one taking aim, getting us pointed in the right direction.
But too often, we can't stand the tension. We say, "God, I can't wait any longer. Unless something happens, I'm done." And God is saying, "But you're not pointed right yet. I don't have enough pull on you yet."
Those who wait — those who say, "God, I trust that you can point me in the right direction; I trust that you'll release me when it's time" — those are the ones who hit the mark.
Life Application: Putting It Into Practice
So where do you go from here? Here are some practical next steps:
Stop fighting the wind. Whatever season you're in right now — the struggle, the waiting, the weariness — stop trying to force your own way through it. Ask God to help you feel his presence instead of fighting it.
Check your braid. If you're exhausted, if you're saying "I can't do this anymore," that's a milestone telling you something — you've drifted from intimacy with God. Get back into his Word. Get back into prayer. Get woven back in.
Look for the small movements. Stop staring only at the big thing you're waiting for and start noticing where God has already been moving. The milestones matter.
God is aware. God is able. And those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. Not might — shall. That's a promise worth holding onto.
"But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." — Isaiah 40:31