The Key To Getting Through a Season of Waiting

By Andrea Lucado

This month we’re going to be talking about something most of us are not good at doing: waiting.

I think there are two types of waiting. The lowercase “w” type of waiting that gets on our nerves:

waiting in the security line at the airport

waiting for Amazon Prime to deliver your groceries

waiting on a family member to finish hogging the bathroom

These are inconveniences. Waiting that simply annoys us because we are inherently impatient people.

Then, there is the capital “W” type of waiting. This type of waiting is much more difficult. It creates a deep longing for a certain thing and a deep anxiety that the certain thing may never happen or materialize:

Waiting to find a spouse

Waiting to conceive

Waiting to be reconciled to a loved one

Waiting for the grieving to end

Waiting for…you fill in the blank.

The capital “W” waiting is the real waiting. It’s the stuff that makes life feel unbearable at times. It is also the type of waiting often described in scripture. In the context of suffering and waiting for future glory, Paul wrote about why life is so full of Waiting in Romans 8.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.  Romans 8:22-25

These verses shed so much light on why we wait and how we should wait. Paul explains that all of creation is groaning. There is a communal waiting that we all endure on earth—waiting for Christ’s return. Whenever we are going through a personal season of waiting, no matter what we are waiting for, it mirrors this groaning that is in all of us, this desire for Christ to come back and reconcile all things to himself.

The Greek word Paul uses for “wait” in this passage, apekdechomai, suggests waiting with perseverance. It’s not simply sitting around and twiddling our thumbs, but rather, waiting with hope. Waiting expectantly. Waiting and knowing that God will act.

This might be the hardest part of waiting while on earth, for we don’t know the outcome of our circumstances, but we do know the final outcome. We know that Christ is coming again. We can be sure of this if nothing else.

When you grow weary of waiting with a capital “W,” remember that as Christ followers, we never wait or hope in vain. We wait with perseverance because we know that our hope has already come and is coming again.

If you would like to know more about this passage in Romans on waiting, we have an entire study available on the book of Romans. Click here for more information.