How to Wait Badly
Next Sunday, December 3rd marks the first day of Advent. It’s a joyous season, and in recent years I’ve been intentional in observing it in whatever small way I can. Whether it’s an Advent calendar (they don’t make them just for kids anymore) or cozy nights with all the Christmas lights turned on and some ambient jazz music in the background, I do my best to use this time of the year to maximize the hygge and celebrate with friends and family.
The purpose of the Advent season in the Christian calendar is to turn our focus on the past and future coming of Jesus Christ. We remember the eager hope and expectation that Israel had for the coming Messiah, and we apply that to our own present hope and expectation that Jesus Christ will come back soon. Not only do we celebrate his birth, but Christmas is also about looking forward to seeing his future promises fulfilled.
And so that brings us to the waiting period.
There will always be a period of waiting between the moment that God promises something and its fulfillment. Not just when it comes to Scripture, but our personal lives as well. I have come to see in my own life that when Peter writes, “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day,” sometimes it genuinely feels like a thousand years (2 Pet. 3:8, ESV).
Maybe it’s the seasonal depression, maybe it’s the holidays, but I know that this time of the year is a moment where the “waiting period” starts getting harder for many of us, especially when we’re presented with the fact that our personal timelines have not aligned with the Lord’s. I’m sure we’ve all read through material that tells us how to wait “well”, so today I want to chat a bit about how we can wait badly and what that looks like. I have been chief of sinners here, and praise God he’s had grace for me over the years. They say misery loves company, and so maybe some of you have failed as spectacularly as I have and we can comfort one another in that.
And so I present to you: six stages of waiting badly. Not necessarily in order, not necessarily an exhaustive list either, but a little overview that I hope will be helpful for someone going through this moment in life.
Disappointment
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”
Proverbs 13:12, ESV
Disappointment is a result of some sort of letdown that comes as a result of a hope that hasn’t been fulfilled. Whether the hope may have been in a person, event, or a timeline, the expectation and anticipation you had falls flat and you’re left feeling empty handed. Some people may feel betrayed, others are just sad. I think we all deal with it differently. That’s not to say that God’s promise will never be fulfilled, but it’s just that at this specific moment in time it has not been, and there is a type of grief in this, and I want to openly acknowledge that these feelings are okay to have, and that they will come up and they do need to be dealt with.
I think the most painful type of disappointment to have is the one that appears as if it’s a prayer being fulfilled and that God is bringing a good thing into your life, only to have it not come to pass. Man those suck.
Faithful expectation and full surrender can be a tight rope to walk. We Christians are called to hold on to faith with hope and expectation but to also have things fully surrendered in such a way that even if it doesn’t come to pass God is still good in our lives. Hebrews 11:39-40, our spiritual fathers and mothers were commended for their faith but never got to see the promise fulfilled in their lifetimes, because God had a longer goal in mind, and that was Jesus Christ.
The question is, what are you going to do when disappointment hits? I think the optimal answer would be to cry a little and then move on, but there are also worse things to do…
Despair
The Oxford dictionary defines despair as, “the complete loss or absence of hope”. Despair comes when you look around you at the reality of things as they are, and with your rational eyes and logical thought processes ascertain that nothing has changed, nothing has happened. You’ve taken a look at the “cold hard truth” and you’ve lost all hope that anything could or will happen. I would say this stage is probably the most toxic stage to be in throughout this whole process, because it poisons the mind as well as the lens through which you view life.
Tim Keller had a great sermon on Joseph. The Lord gave Joseph beautiful promises early on, but for the first few decades of his life he encountered setback after setback. Mind you, Joseph did everything right. And for many of us who are faithful Christians, this part can hurt because we’re being obedient but not seeing the fruit of his promises.
Yet Joseph didn’t fall into temptation, he didn’t waver in his faith, though the means by which God’s promises would be fulfilled in that moment were hidden from him, and hidden for a very long time. The one thing that separates Joseph from many of us though, is that he never despaired. He never lost hope.
Never give up that hope, never surrender that faith. Trust that if God has said it, he will do it.
The Whisper of Doubt
But…did God really say?
You said God promised you this? Did he actually say it? Were those his actual words? If that sentence in bold sounds familiar, that’s because it is. It’s the familiar voice of the crafty snake that spoke to Eve in the garden, it’s the familiar voice of him tempting us too.
I hear that voice most often when it comes to prophetic words I’ve received over the years. Never mind that the Holy Spirit in me testified to those words, never mind that they’ve been confirmed and reconfirmed time and time again through different ways and means. Never mind that other words have been fulfilled in my life, and that according to the wise counsel of my brothers and sisters in Christ, these are words to hold on to.
That being said, I do want to put in a cautionary note here that all prophetic words that come to you must be carefully weighed and judged, by yourself and ideally by wise counsel from others around you too. Sometimes they are words to hold on to, sometimes they need to be set aside, and this is where good counsel is vital. With all prophetic words, I would say “hold them lightly” but if they are ones that God has confirmed, hold them faithfully.
But what if you didn’t receive specific prophetic words, but you’ve been praying on this subject for years and years? What if this is a prayer of your heart, true, sincere, genuine? What if this is a prayer that you know pleases the heart of the Lord because it’s not done out of selfishness or bad motives? This is where Scripture comes in. This is where we hold fast to what the Word of God says and hold it closely to our hearts. I’ve added Bible verses at the bottom of this newsletter that have been ones I’ve memorized and recalled over and over again when these doubts hit.
Have faith in Him.
The Air of Melancholy
It’s all over you, a general sense of sadness. You’ve healed from the despair, you’ve healed from the doubt, but there’s just this atmosphere of melancholy around you. Happiness can still pierce through this melancholic state, but it doesn’t seem to land in your heart of hearts. You smile, you laugh, but all the while continue to be in a pensive, thoughtful mood. Sometimes it’s characterized by thinking over past events and analyzing them over and over.
I will be honest, find me a good cloudy day and a certain time of the month and we’ve got the perfect recipe for melancholia. I am not talking about a clinical diagnosis of depression here, but I am talking about a few days or weeks here and there where this mood pervades your spirit.
When this mood hits, it’s hard to see even the silver linings. But this is where we need to turn our focus to gratitude and thanksgiving, to be intentional in rejoicing always, even when our hearts aren’t in it. Your heart will come around eventually, I promise.
Distraction
Whatever the source, it looks like Netflix binges and movies you’ve already watched a thousand times on repeat. It looks like doom scrolling through Reels and Shorts way past the time limits you’ve set on your phone. For the bookish, it means going back to reread your old classic favorites or getting lost in new stories. Or for others of us it means going back for that extra bite after you’re already full and not hungry, because you’re looking for comfort. Or your looking for that endorphin rush of stimulation gives you a momentary boost.
Distraction does a good job of leading to apathy because you’re using these methods first to comfort and then to numb yourself to the subject you’re avoiding. I think we can even dress this idea up as “self-care” and not realize that we’re hurting ourselves in the long run. Avoidance and consolation is not the long term cure that we need.
The Winter of Discontent
Or if it’s not apathy you’re feeling it’s….restlessness. You just want TO DO SOMETHING ALREADY. So you start thinking, scheming, making plans. I honestly waffle back and forth about whether this is a bad stage to be in or a fruitful one. Because on the one hand, I think we humans are so bound to comfort that we never take the step to take the plunge that God has been wanting us to do until some sort of restless energy finally drives us to do it.
But on the other hand Paul writes, “godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Tim. 6:6). And if you’re in a season of waiting where God has clearly told you to stay put and to be faithful and content in what you are doing, this restless energy can be damaging. After all, Sarah made her own plans and look how they turned out. We see the fruit of her desire to do things her own way when she got impatient with God’s plan, and they’re still fighting it out thousands of years later.
Overburdening your social calendar because you hate the thought of being alone with your thoughts can’t be a particularly good thing all the time. It’s good to recognize when you’re being busy for the Lord because he’s called you to it or busy because your desire is to satiate that restless energy by feeling useful and needed. This one does require discernment, and sometimes let’s be honest…it’s a bit of both.
Yikes Dude
I’m laughing because I know none of what’s been written is particularly encouraging. And before I get concerned text messages, I do want to assure you all I am doing fine. But I wanted to type these out because I know we’ve all been there at one of these points or another, and before you drink your medicine you first need to be able to diagnose your condition.
And so I want to say if you are going through any of these rough patches at the moment, as a fellow sister in Christ I’m coming up to you in solidarity. Waiting is not easy, and patience doesn’t come naturally to any of us, nor contentment for that matter. I wanted to title this newsletter “The Crucible of Expectations” in a more dramatic moment, because it really does feel like every part of your flesh is being tested through fire and refined in one way or another.
But remember that you’re not in this alone, and more than that, there is someone who will never leave you alone. He is faithful, he loves you, and he will walk through this moment with you just as he’s walked with you before.
Songs to Fight With…
I made this Spotify playlist featuring a few songs that have gotten me through some tough periods. Hope it encourages you :)
Bible Verses to Fight With…
Disappointment:
Romans 8:26-28, Philippians 4:6-7
Despair:
Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Rom 8:24–25, ESV.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen
Heb 11:1, ESV.
Doubt:
And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” Lk 1:45, ESV.
For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
Romans 4:3, ESV.
God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? Numbers 23:19, ESV.
Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Mark 11:22–24, ESV
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. 1 John 5:14–15, ESV.
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
John 15:7, ESV
Melancholy:
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Psalm 51:10–12, ESV.
