Today I Noticed…

The word 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, the bank, and the school carpool line. We wait for packages to be delivered, and occasions marked on our calendars to celebrate.

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 wait 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.

According to my recent internet search, the word wait is use between 106-129 times in the bible (depending on the translation you use). Psalm 27.14 says, “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 has placed in your heart.

Is Psalm 27.14 telling us to sit still and do nothing? No. Here in this psalm, wait is an active word. A Hebrew word, Qavveh. Qavveh means to wait with hope, to look for with eager expectation. It is derived from the idea of twisting or binding strands together to form a rope or a strong cord. Think of winding something tight to create strength.

I think we could read Psalm 27.14 like this… ‘Bind yourself to the Lord; be strong and let your heart have courage as you hope for His deliverance’. Waiting WITH Him, binding ourselves to Him, that isn’t sitting and doing nothing. It is an active form of faith and trust. It is wrapping ourselves around Him, His character and His truths.

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 until all that waiting becomes more about changing us than just about changing our situation.

Maybe we start to look more like Jesus in the waiting, and maybe others notice.