Wait…

Wait : Patience, Endurance, and Expectation

Waiting has a way of revealing what we actually believe.

I’ve never been especially good at it. Whether I’m waiting on a package to arrive or for clarity in a difficult season, my instinct is the same: fix it fast. Silence feels inefficient. Delay feels like something has gone wrong.

Most of us live this way. We’re trained to expect progress, answers, and outcomes. When they don’t show up, frustration sets in—not always loudly, but steadily.

There’s an old commercial where someone shouts, “It’s my money, and I need it now.” It sticks because it exposes something true. We don’t just dislike waiting; we resist it. Waiting feels like a loss of control.

Scripture tells a slower story.

As Christmas approaches, many Christians observe Advent—a season centered on expectation. Advent isn’t only about remembering that Jesus was born. It’s about remembering what it meant to wait for Him.

After the prophet Malachi, there’s a long silence in the biblical story—roughly four hundred years with no new revelation. Life didn’t pause. Empires rose and fell. Israel lived under foreign rule. Hope fractured. Expectations about the Messiah multiplied and collided. Some anticipated a political deliverer. Others looked for a priest. Some stopped expecting anything at all.

Four centuries is long enough for a promise to feel distant—maybe even unreal.

From a theological perspective, that silence wasn’t abandonment. It was preparation. History was being pulled tight toward something decisive. When God finally spoke again, it wasn’t through another prophet, but through Jesus Himself.

Waiting, it turns out, was part of the design.

That pattern hasn’t changed. Christians now live in another in-between moment—looking back at Christ’s first coming and forward to His return. Scripture doesn’t promise constant clarity in the meantime. Instead, it calls us to patience, endurance, and staying awake.

Those words assume pressure. Endurance only matters when something pushes back.

Recently, two astronauts launched on a mission planned for eight days. Mechanical problems extended its orbit to nine months. They didn’t describe themselves as abandoned. One of them said the extra time helped them appreciate the view.

That’s patience—not passivity, but steadiness.

Faith often looks like that. Not dramatic certainty. Not instant answers. Just the choice to stay when resolution doesn’t come quickly.

Waiting isn’t empty space. It’s formative space.

The question isn’t whether waiting will test us. It will. The question is whether we will hold on while it does.