Wait Expectantly: Praying Through the Waiting

"O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch." — Psalm 5:3 (ESV)

Few things test our faith like waiting on God. We pray, and then… nothing. The silence stretches, and the pressure builds to do something — anything — to force an answer ourselves. Or we swing the other way and assume waiting means sitting on our hands, doing nothing at all. But biblical waiting is neither. It isn't us seizing the reins, nor is it passive resignation — it's an active trust that places our whole lives under His care. And rushing ahead of Him rarely ends well.

Scripture is full of what happens when we grab the reins. Abraham, tired of waiting for the promise, had a son through Hagar — and the fallout from that "help" is still unfolding. Saul, unwilling to wait for Samuel, seized the priest's role and lost his kingdom. Israel, afraid during the wait, ran to Egypt for help instead of to God. I've come to call it "creating an Ishmael" — the child of our impatience, born whenever we refuse to wait for God's timing.

But here's what changes everything about the waiting: God isn't slow, and He isn't absent. The delay is rarely Him ignoring you — more often it's Him doing something in you that only the waiting can accomplish. He uses the wait to loosen our grip, deepen our trust, and prepare us for an answer we couldn't have delivered a moment sooner. Abraham's long years weren't wasted; they were forging the father of a nation. The silence isn't empty. God is at work in it — most of all, in you.

So how do we wait well — without forcing God's hand or checking out entirely? It starts with prayer — but not prayer as a quick list of requests we fire off and forget. Waiting is sustained by prayer that becomes meditation, the kind that keeps drawing us back to God while His answer is still on the way.

Listen to how David prayed: "O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch." That last word — watch — reflects the posture of a watchman on the wall, scanning the horizon, fully expecting something to appear. The NLT captures the sense: "I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly." David didn't pray and then wander off; he prayed and watched, confident that God would act.

For David, prayer wasn't a pile of words — it was meditation, a way of staying near God's heart. That kind of meditation usually takes one of three simple forms: reciting or memorizing Scripture until it's in you; turning a truth over in your mind throughout the day; and practicing what you're learning until it becomes a habit. Each one keeps the line to God open while you wait.

David's life also shows us how to pray during a waiting season: pray often, not only in emergencies; pray early, when your mind is fresh and undistracted; give God your full attention rather than a divided, half-there prayer; and then wait patiently for His answer, trusting that it will come.

I'm living this right now. In 2022, I walked away from a business I'd built from nothing and loved — and in the same season, I was asked to step away from a church I loved, at the height of my involvement. At forty-nine, I was suddenly "retired" and, if I'm honest, unsure who I even was without those roles. I've prayed hard for God to show me what's next, and mostly He has answered with silence. I could have forced something — grabbed the next title just to feel like myself again. Instead, I'm trying to wait expectantly: doing the two things He has made clear — mentoring fellow Christians in business and writing a book for parents — while I keep watching for the fuller chapter I still can't see. The waiting isn't comfortable, but I've come to trust that He's doing something in the quiet that I couldn't do for myself.

Waiting, it turns out, isn't idle time. It's watchman's work — prayer, meditation, and eyes fixed on the horizon, expecting God to move. So don't just wait. Wait expectantly.

Big Idea: Waiting on God isn't passive resignation or running ahead of Him — it's active trust, sustained by prayer that becomes meditation and a heart that watches expectantly for Him to act.

Questions to Ponder: When God goes quiet, which way do you tend to lean — grabbing the reins to force an answer, or going numb and checking out until something changes? Sit honestly with that. And once you spot your go-to lean, ask why: is it fear, a need to control, plain impatience, or a quiet doubt that God will really come through? And what would it look like to trust Him right there instead — neither forcing nor checking out, but actively waiting on Him?

Application: With your journal in hand, let's start by honestly naming your pattern. Finish this sentence: "When waiting on God, I tend to ______, because I ______." For example: "When waiting on God, I tend to get impatient and try to solve things myself, because I sadly doubt whether God will act." Or: "When waiting on God, I tend to go passive and disappear, because I'm afraid of making a mistake."

Now bring a real situation to mind — something you're waiting on God for right now, or, if nothing comes to mind, a past season when you had to wait. Picture how your default lean shows up there: the "Ishmael" you're tempted to create, or the checking-out you slip into.

Then ask how you could shake off that default and wait with active trust instead. Could you set a fixed time each morning to bring it to God rather than stewing over it? Could you choose one verse about His faithfulness to meditate on while you wait? Could you invite a trusted friend to pray and watch with you? Could you write a single honest line each day — "Lord, I'm still watching for You" — instead of forcing the outcome? Pick one and start this week. Let prayer be how you wait, and watch expectantly for how He answers.