Waiting With Confidence

Monday, September 19

Waiting With Confidence

But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently. Romans 8:25

A few years ago there was a thing on social media called the ‘Temptation Challenge’. Parents were instructed to get your child’s favorite snack, open it in front of them and then disappear for a long period of time to see if the child could resist eating the candies until you returned. For the most part the kids failed. They were not able to resist the temptation right before them. It’s evident that no one wants to wait. Romans 8:23-25 Paul teaches us about waiting with endurance or waiting with confidence. He encourages us by saying that we should look forward to something we don’t have yet and to do so with patience and confidence.

Being forced to wait for something really important to happen, big, or life-changing turn’s minutes into hours, days into weeks, and months into years. Whether it’s waiting to be able to afford a better house, waiting on test results (of any kind!), waiting for a long-overdue promotion, waiting to become pregnant, waiting for pain or suffering to end, or waiting on the opportunity to pursue a lifelong dream, the list of things that can make waiting seem like an eternity is as long and varied as each individual. But how do we learn to wait well? By focusing on God. Many times, God’s aim in making us wait is to teach us through the journey of waiting, versus the end result of doing so, God sees waiting as an opportunity to bless us, while we often see waiting as a struggle or a hassle.

Lewis Smedes wrote, “Waiting is the hardest work of hope.” When we keep our focus on God, instead of whatever it is that we’re waiting for, the Holy Spirit will season our hard work with grace, patience, and confidence.