In your waiting, what are you waiting for? Are you narrowly waiting for God to arrange a specific outcome or dispense a certain provision? Or are you diligently waiting upon Him, with your soul quieted and reliant upon the goodness of His character and His will (Ps 37:7)?

Surely you would agree with me that waiting for the flu to pass is very different than waiting for Christmas Day to arrive. While both circumstances involve perseverance, the latter is a much more pleasant process for us. We have all experienced the eager wait to receive something good—a wedding date or a child’s birth, a friend’s company or a delightful meal, a paycheck or a ripened backyard crop. In these times of waiting, there is a comfort and reassurance to the excitement itself that heartens us to endure. The receipt of any earthly pleasure is a cause for rejoicing and thanksgiving, after all, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17, ESV). God is the ultimate source of everything bright in our lives, and it is hope, not despair, that accompanies us as we anticipate His gifts.

There are other times, however, when, rather than waiting for something pleasant to come, we are waiting for something unpleasant to end. At times, too, in God’s providence, life’s trials come in wearying clusters, as fierce and incessant as a series of hurricanes. In these seasons, we are typically not coveting a brighter, clearer sun; instead, we are ever watchful for the gloomy thunderclouds to begin to dissipate. When we find ourselves, as Job certainly did, in a storm of compounding difficulties, we naturally ache for relief from the pelting of affliction. We must be wary of becoming weary as we await this, all the while learning to confidently withstand even the most severe storms that our loving God sends.

God’s Word informs us that His people have historically been a people in waiting. As Christians today await their eternal home in heaven, we recognize that there are many spiritual lessons to learn from the Israelites who once yearned to reside in the literal land that God had promised to them since the time of Abraham (Gen 12:1; Deut 1:8). The Israelites who were banned from entering the Promised Land lived in waiting, too. Albeit they were not waiting for the receipt of this good gift, but for relief from the sorrow of it being withheld from them (a consequence of their own faithlessness and disobedience), even if this end to their suffering were to only fully come in death.

Though our human nature grumbles about it, the Bible tells us that God has designed trials, such as periods of arduous waiting, to purify us (Prov 25:4). There is unparalleled spiritual blessing to righteously enduring trials. For the heavenly-minded, every earthly loss or prohibition can be considered as being for our benefit, for “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good [so that we would] be conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom 8:28–29). Surely there were some Israelites who, accepting that they would never receive the pleasures of Canaan, embraced this disappointment and difficulty as fertile conditions for trusting and hoping in God alone to fulfill them, sustain them, and otherwise motivate them toward faithful living. God was their portion, even while Canaan was not.

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