Waiting and faith so often go hand in hand. Alongside faith, waiting is a prominent theme in Hebrews 11. For what does it mean to have faith but to wait well upon the Lord and worship Him while doing so?

Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s Founding Fathers, was also the father of many popular idioms. Writing under the pseudonym Poor Richard as something of a secular Solomon, Franklin gave away many pearls of modern wisdom. These pearls include: “Well done is better than well said,” “Haste makes waste,” and most famously, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” 

True enough. For a time, however, thoughts of death—though not death itself—can be avoided and even taxes evaded (despite garnering devastating consequences in either case). Waiting, by contrast, can scarcely be dodged and is nigh universal to the human experience. Indeed, to wait is to be human. It is the great equalizer; common to kings, beggars, geniuses, and simpletons alike.

As my wife and I anticipate the birth of our son in only a few days, my thoughts have often turned to the Lord’s manifold purposes in seasons of waiting—waiting for an answer to prayer, for an open door, for healing, for relief, for employment, for retirement, for a child to come, for a child to return, and all else between. So much of life is waiting; surely the Lord would have us do it well. He does nothing without purpose. Thus, we should endeavor to wait—even wait!—with purpose ourselves, knowing that this is a gift from His hands. Indeed, as with all things,—“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31)—the Lord expects us to worship while we wait.

To wait is to be human. To wait well, however, is to be Christian. Throughout the Bible, God’s people were no strangers to the wilderness of waiting. For if you remember, the nation of Israel wandered about this particular wilderness for a generation. 

In His wisdom, God often calls His people to wait with no off-ramp in sight. Abraham was well-advanced in years before he received the child of God’s promise from many years before; for decades, Moses tended to livestock in the wilderness before God suddenly tasked him with tending to the people of Israel through another wilderness for several decades more; David faithfully and courageously led sheep as a youth before God, through many trials and snares, established him as the leader of a nation; even Jesus Himself, the Captain of our salvation, worked as a carpenter in near obscurity for thirty years before He began His earthly ministry. 

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