Is Waiting on God a Waste of Time?

I've caught myself saying it more than once: "I'm just waiting to see what happens." Like waiting is a pause button. Like nothing is really happening until the answer comes.

But I don't think that's true anymore.

I used to picture waiting as empty space — a gap between where I am and where I actually want to be. A hallway with nothing in it. And if that's what waiting is, then of course it feels like wasted time. Who wants to sit in an empty hallway?

But Scripture doesn't describe waiting that way at all.

Waiting Was Never Empty in the Bible

Ruth wasn't waiting in an empty hallway. She was in the fields — gleaning, working, showing up day after day — long before she had any idea Boaz would become part of her story (Ruth 2). The waiting was just quiet.

David was anointed king as a boy, and then waited years before he ever sat on a throne. In between, he was tending sheep, running from Saul, hiding in caves. It looked like nothing was happening. But that's exactly when God was shaping a shepherd into a king (1 Samuel 16–2 Samuel 5).

And Naomi returned home from Moab convinced she was empty-handed, unable to see that Ruth walking beside her was already evidence God was writing something new (Ruth 1). She couldn't see it yet. That didn't mean it wasn't there.

Waiting Is Where God Does Work We Can't See Yet

Here's what I keep coming back to: waiting isn't the absence of movement. It's usually the place where God is doing the deepest, slowest, most important work — the kind that can't be rushed.

A field doesn't grow faster because you're anxious about the harvest. A person isn't formed faster because they're tired of waiting to become who they're meant to be. Some things just take time, and God is not wasting a single day of it, even when it feels like nothing is changing.

What This Looks Like Today

If you're in a waiting season right now — waiting for clarity, for healing, for a door to open — I don't think you're stuck. I think you might be exactly where the work is happening.

You don't have to feel productive for the waiting to count. You don't have to see the whole picture for God to be working in it. He's not waiting for the waiting to end before He shows up. He's already there, in it, with you.

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