When Waiting Makes You Uncomfortable
There is a kind of waiting that feels peaceful.
You have prayed. You have placed something in God’s hands. You trust Him with the outcome, and although you do not know what will happen, your heart is settled.
And then there is another kind of waiting.
The kind where you keep checking.
Keep thinking.
Keep reconsidering.
Keep looking for another possibility.
Keep wondering whether you should do something.
Keep asking yourself whether you missed something.
Nothing has necessarily changed in the situation, but something has begun moving inside of you.
You are becoming uncomfortable.
And sometimes that discomfort becomes so strong that we would rather manufacture an answer than continue living without one.
That is where waiting becomes revealing.
Because waiting does not only reveal whether we believe God can answer.
Waiting reveals what happens inside of us when He does not answer as quickly as we would like.
What Happens When God Doesn’t Resolve It?
We often pray expecting resolution.
Lord, show me what to do.
Lord, open the door.
Lord, close the door.
Lord, provide what I need.
Lord, change this situation.
Lord, give me an answer.
And sometimes He does.
There are beautiful moments when clarity comes quickly and unmistakably.
But what happens when it doesn’t?
What happens when you pray and Monday becomes Tuesday, Tuesday becomes Friday, and another week passes without anything changing?
What happens when the decision is still sitting there?
What happens when the relationship remains unresolved?
What happens when the opportunity has not appeared?
What happens when the provision has not come in the way you expected?
What happens when you still do not know?
That is when uncertainty begins talking.
Maybe I need to do something.
Maybe I missed God.
Maybe this other option will work.
Maybe I should go back.
Maybe I should try something else.
Maybe I need another opinion.
Maybe I need another sign.
And before long, we can become so desperate to eliminate uncertainty that we stop asking whether God has actually given us direction.
We simply want the discomfort to end.
We Like Certainty Because Certainty Feels Like Control
There is something comforting about knowing.
If I know what is happening, I can prepare for it.
If I know what someone is going to do, I can respond to it.
If I know where the money is coming from, I can make plans.
If I know which door God wants me to walk through, I can start moving.
If I know how the story ends, I can relax.
But faith rarely gives us the entire story before asking us to walk.
Hebrews 11:1 tells us:
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Not seen.
Those two words matter.
Faith contains an element of uncertainty, not uncertainty about who God is, but uncertainty about circumstances we cannot yet see.
We know God.
We know His character.
We know His Word.
We know His faithfulness.
But we do not always know what He is going to do next.
And sometimes we try to replace that unknown with something we can control.
We manufacture certainty.
We decide what must happen.
We decide what an open door must mean.
We decide that because something has taken too long, God must want us to choose another direction.
We decide that because an opportunity appeared, it must be His answer.
We decide that because something feels uncomfortable, we must need to change it.
But certainty we manufacture ourselves is not the same thing as direction from God.
Israel Became Uncomfortable Waiting
There is a moment in Exodus 32 that shows just how dangerous discomfort with waiting can become.
Moses had gone up Mount Sinai to meet with God.
The people were below.
And Moses was gone longer than they expected.
Exodus 32:1 says:
“And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron…”
There it is.
Delayed.
Nothing in that verse says God had abandoned them.
Nothing says Moses was never coming back.
Nothing says the covenant had disappeared.
The problem was that the people did not know what was happening.
And they became uncomfortable.
So they demanded that Aaron make them gods to go before them.
Think about that.
They had already seen the Red Sea open.
They had already experienced God’s deliverance from Egypt.
They had already witnessed His supernatural provision.
God had not stopped being God simply because Moses had not returned according to their preferred timetable.
But uncertainty became intolerable.
So they created something they could see.
Something tangible.
Something immediate.
Something they could point to.
Something that made them feel as though they had direction again.
They manufactured certainty.
And sometimes we do the same thing in much quieter ways.
We may not build a golden calf.
But we can build an answer.
Sometimes We Keep Touching What We Said We Gave to God
There is another way discomfort shows itself.
We pray:
“Lord, I’m giving this to You.”
And then we pick it back up.
We give it back.
Then retrieve it again.
We pray about it.
Then research it.
Then pray again.
Then ask three people what they think.
Then reconsider the original decision.
Then look for another option.
Then wonder whether a new circumstance is a sign.
Then go back and revisit something God already settled.
We are technically waiting on God while simultaneously trying every possible way to help Him resolve the situation.
That is exhausting.
Psalm 37:7 says:
“Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him…”
Rest and waiting appear together.
That does not mean we never take practical action while waiting. There are things we remain responsible for doing.
But there is a difference between responsible preparation and anxious interference.
One prepares for God’s direction.
The other tries to produce it.
Sometimes we need to ask ourselves:
Can I leave my hands off this long enough for God to show me what He wants to do?
Being Still Is Harder Than It Sounds
Psalm 46:10 contains words many of us know well:
“Be still, and know that I am God…”
We can put that verse on coffee mugs, journals, wall art, and beautiful graphics.
Living it is another matter.
Being still means there are moments when I must resist the urge to control what happens next.
Being still means I do not have to respond to every possibility.
Being still means I do not have to interpret every circumstance immediately.
Being still means I can allow something to remain unanswered.
Being still means I can trust that God does not require my constant interference in order to accomplish His purpose.
And perhaps most importantly, being still reminds me who God is.
“Be still, and know that I am God.”
The reason I can be still is not because the circumstances are predictable.
It is because God is trustworthy.
Waiting Can Reveal What We Really Believe About God
We often think waiting tests our patience.
Sometimes it does something deeper.
It tests our understanding of God.
Do I believe He knows where I am?
Do I believe He knows what I need?
Do I believe He can open the right door without my forcing it?
Do I believe He can close the wrong one?
Do I believe He can provide?
Do I believe He can redirect me if I am headed the wrong way?
Do I believe He is still working when I cannot see evidence of His work?
Do I believe His silence means absence?
Do I believe His delay means denial?
Do I believe I must keep everything moving, or can I trust Him enough to remain steady?
Those questions can expose something important.
Sometimes our greatest struggle in waiting is not believing that God can do something.
It is believing that He can be trusted with when and how He does it.
Steady Does Not Mean Unaffected
Remaining steady does not mean uncertainty never bothers us.
It does not mean we never feel anxious.
It does not mean we never wonder what God is doing.
It does not mean we never wish He would hurry.
David certainly knew what it was to ask God, “How long?”
Psalm 13 begins:
“How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?”
That is not the prayer of someone pretending waiting feels wonderful.
David was troubled.
He had questions.
He wanted something to change.
But by the end of that short Psalm, something shifts.
“But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.”
The circumstances had not necessarily changed between the beginning of the Psalm and the end.
David’s posture did.
That is steadiness.
Steadiness does not require pretending we are comfortable.
It means our discomfort does not become our leader.
You Are Allowed Not to Know Yet
There is freedom in those words.
I don’t know yet.
We sometimes behave as though not knowing is failure.
It isn’t.
You may not know what the next six months look like.
You may not know which opportunity will work.
You may not know how God will provide.
You may not know whether something will succeed.
You may not know why a door closed.
You may not know why another one has not opened.
You may not know what God is doing behind the scenes.
And you do not have to fill every unknown with an answer of your own making.
Deuteronomy 29:29 says:
“The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us…”
There are things God has revealed.
Walk in those.
There are things He has not revealed yet.
Trust Him with those.
We can obey what we know without manufacturing answers for what we do not.
Maybe the Next Step Hasn’t Been Revealed Because It Isn’t Time to Take It
We often ask God to show us the next step because we are ready to know it.
But perhaps God knows we are not ready to take it.
Perhaps something else needs to happen first.
Perhaps another person needs to be positioned.
Perhaps a circumstance needs to change.
Perhaps a door needs to close.
Perhaps something in us needs to mature.
Perhaps God is protecting us from moving too early.
Or perhaps there is nothing dramatic happening at all.
Maybe it simply isn’t time yet.
We do not have to turn every delay into a mystery.
Sometimes waiting means waiting.
And that can be enough.
When Waiting Makes You Uncomfortable
This entire series began with a simple realization:
I don’t need to grab the first available solution because uncertainty is uncomfortable.
That thought goes deeper than any one decision.
Because there will always be another uncertain situation.
Another unanswered prayer.
Another decision.
Another delay.
Another moment when we wish God would simply tell us what comes next.
So perhaps the goal is not to eliminate uncertainty from our lives.
Perhaps it is to learn how to remain anchored when uncertainty comes.
In the first part of this series, we looked at how availability can masquerade as direction.
In the second, we considered how our constant attempts to fix something can interfere with what God may be teaching us in the waiting.
And now the question becomes personal:
What happens inside me when God doesn’t immediately resolve something?
Can I remain steady?
Can I resist manufacturing certainty?
Can I leave my hands off something long enough to let God reveal the next step?
Can I say, “I don’t know yet,” without feeling that I must immediately change that?
Can I continue doing what God has already given me to do while trusting Him with what He has not yet revealed?
Because sometimes faith is moving when God says move.
Sometimes faith is letting go when God says release.
And sometimes faith is simply standing where you are, with unanswered questions still in your hands, refusing to manufacture an answer just to make yourself feel better.
You don’t have to know what comes next to know Who is already there.
Much Love
~Gayla~
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