3 Biblical Responses to Waiting (Part 1)

Life is a series of events. Think of a timeline where you can plot important events from your life. Each point represents something that happened in your life, maybe it was a decision you made or something that happened without even your input, but then you realize that in between each point on the timeline of our lives is a space…filled with WAITING! Life is just a long game of waiting, isn’t it?

​What do I mean by that? Well, think with me. Little girls are waiting to grow up. Teens are waiting to go to college. College graduates are waiting to get married. Married couples are waiting to have children. Parents are waiting for their children to grow up, go to college, and leave home. Parents of adults are waiting for their adult children to start their own families so they can be grandparents, and on and on the waiting goes. 

We wait for word on a new job, a medical test, a loved one to get back in touch, the return of a deployed spouse, family member, or friend. We wait for appointment availability at the dentist or with the specialists we need to get into. We wait at the doctor’s office, the dentist office, the airport, the pharmacy, the drive-thru, the only line open at Walmart, the auto repair shop… Spiritually, there is a lot of waiting too. We wait for the Lord to save that loved one closest to our hearts. We wait for the Lord to answer a prayer we have prayed for as long as we can remember. We wait for the Lord to bring a wayward child or friend back to Himself. We wait for direction from the Lord in a major life decision. We even, at times, wait for the Lord to take a loved one home so they are not in pain anymore. We wait for the Lord’s soon return…and on and on and on.

Waiting is an inescapable part of life, and if we are honest, we spend a good majority of our lives waiting for something or someone. Have you ever found yourself complaining while you wait? Maybe you are the type to come up with the plan to revolutionize the process so that waiting wouldn’t even be necessary - something like teaching people just to do their jobs properly, right? Am I speaking your language?

Some people look at my life and think that, as a single woman over 40 years old, I must be an expert at waiting. I’m just in this holding pattern of singleness, waiting for my “knight in shining armor” to arrive and end my long period of waiting in lonely singleness. Well, let me just dispel the "fairy tale” for you right now! Single people are not professional “waiters” at all. We are navigating the same waiting game of life as anyone else who ticks a different box on “marital status” when it comes to filling out paperwork in those (you guessed it) “waiting rooms”! 

So, you might be thinking, Amanda, this is not very encouraging. I wish I had a cure for all the waiting in this life. What I can tell you definitively is that waiting is a sure part of life that we must deal with. But we don’t have to live in fear of the waiting, nor do we have to dread that waiting. I believe the Bible gives us some clear teaching about what to do WHILE we are waiting. I wish it were a cure for the waiting, but in the absence of a cure, let’s look over the next few blog posts about what to do with that space between dots on the timelines of our lives that will help us grow while we wait. I see three biblical responses to waiting that will help us in these unavoidable times. Let’s look at the first one today!

“Stand Still” - Exodus 14:10-14

Let’s set the scene in Exodus 14. Now you have to use your sanctified imagination here. And you can’t skip ahead knowing that God is going to part the Red Sea. Be an Israelite here. Moses and the children of Israel had been miraculously delivered from Egypt, only to find themselves trapped with the Red Sea in front of them and the Egyptian army closing in from behind them. They were waiting to be destroyed as far as their human minds could see the situation. Their hearts were so fearful and even seemingly overly dramatic about the situation. They cried to Moses, “Were there no graves to be buried in in Egypt? So, you brought us here to die, Moses!” The massive Red Sea could swallow them up, or the Egyptians could destroy them, or maybe even worse, re-enslave them. What a horribly difficult time of ominous waiting this must have been!

Moses’ solution to the people given here in Exodus 14 seems almost ludicrous. Moses comes to the people with a comforting, but possibly confusing message – “Don’t worry. Just stand still…and see the amazing thing God is going to do to save us!” Seems completely rational, right? WRONG! I can imagine that if I were among those Israelites, I would have been crafting a boat or trying to figure out some way to escape certain death. But God told them to just stand still and wait! We benefit from this historical account because we know what they were waiting for was well worth the wait! The sea parted and revealed dry ground for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people to walk across to safety!

It's easy for us to look at this story and be very critical of the Israelites and their fear and unbelief. But aren’t we the same? Remember, they didn’t know the sea would part and reveal dry ground. All they could see was the impassable sea in front of them and the dust clouds from the horse-drawn chariots behind them. I find their response incredibly human and normal. But it wasn’t the Godly response.

Think back to a time in your life when you were trapped by a “Red Sea” on one side and an “Egyptian army” on the other. What was your response? Mine has looked a lot like the Israelites - “Why would you do this, Lord?” There was ABSOLUTELY nothing they could do while they were waiting to die…except trust the One Who had delivered them from Egypt once to do it again! 

Friend, are you facing an obstacle in life about which you can do NOTHING to change? Are you just waiting “to die” as it were? Maybe you are spinning your wheels trying to figure a way out when all God wants you to do is to “Stand still” and watch Him do the work for you.

I can’t promise you that the result will be a sea parted and dry ground to walk on, but I can promise you that the God in Whom you trust will fight for you!

Maybe your response to waiting should be “stand still,” or maybe it should be “sit still,” or possibly “be still,” or a combination of all three. Next month, we will explore these last two biblical responses to waiting. I’m even going to make you wait for the rest of the post! But that’s just life, isn’t it? May God encourage your heart to “stand still” and wait for Him to do the impossible today!

When you find yourself trapped between your own “Red Sea” and “Egyptian army,” what would it look like for you to truly stand still and trust God to fight for you instead of striving to fix things yourself?