Today I Noticed…

The Word "Wait"

Wait.

Such a small, four-letter word. Yet we spend so much of our lives doing it.

We wait in line at the grocery store. We wait in traffic. We wait on hold while the customer service representative tells us our call is important. We wait for our children to come out of practice.

Then there's the deeper kind of waiting.

We wait for test results. We wait for acceptance letters, job promotions, exam grades, or for that little stick to turn blue. We wait in doctors' offices, at our desks, in our cars. And sometimes, we wait beside the beds of those we love as they prepare to walk home with Jesus.

The waiting I'm doing right now is different.

I'm waiting on God.

I'm waiting on His plan, His timing, and His hand to move in an area of my life that feels beyond my control. I can see a dozen ways to step in—to make things easier, fix them faster, or force an outcome I think would be better.

Yet He gently says, No.

He says, Wait.

Waiting on His timing can be painful. It's confusing. It's frustrating. At times, it feels incredibly lonely.

A quick internet search says the word wait appears well over one hundred times in the Bible, depending on the translation. One of my favorite verses is Psalm 27:14:

"Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord."

At first glance, it almost sounds simple.

Hang in there.
Don't worry so much.
Let it go.
Just let God handle it.

We've all heard those well-intentioned phrases from people trying to encourage us. But anyone who has lived through a season of waiting knows it's rarely that simple. Waiting is hard—especially when it involves someone you love or a dream you believe God Himself placed in your heart.

So is Psalm 27:14 telling us to sit still and do nothing?

I don't think so.

The Hebrew word translated as wait is qavah. It means to wait with hope, to eagerly expect, to look for with confident anticipation. Even more beautifully, the word carries the idea of twisting or binding strands together to form a strong rope.

Think about that for a moment.

Strength doesn't come from a single strand. It comes from strands woven tightly together.

Maybe that's what God is inviting us to do.

To bind ourselves to Him.

To wrap ourselves so tightly around His character, His promises, and His faithfulness that when life pulls against us, we don't unravel.

Maybe Psalm 27:14 could be read like this:

"Bind yourself to the Lord. Be strong. Let your heart find courage as you confidently hope for His deliverance."

That kind of waiting isn't passive.

It's active faith.

It's choosing, day after day, to trust the One who sees what we cannot. It's believing His silence doesn't mean His absence. It's allowing Him to strengthen us while He shapes the outcome.

And perhaps that's the greatest gift hidden inside the waiting.

God isn't only working on the situation we're praying will change.

He's working on us.

Because if we'll let Him, we begin to look a little more like Jesus while we wait.