The Crossroads of Faith in God’s Waiting Room
There are some seasons of life that seem to pass quickly. We pray about something, God answers, and before long we’re standing on the other side looking back at His faithfulness. Those seasons are wonderful because they remind us how much God cares about the details of our lives and how involved He truly is in every step of our journey.
Then there are seasons that feel entirely different.
The prayers are just as sincere. The need is just as real. The desire to see God move hasn’t changed. Yet instead of an immediate answer, we find ourselves waiting. Days turn into weeks. Weeks turn into months. Sometimes those months become years, and before long we realize we’ve been sitting in what feels like God’s waiting room.
I don’t know about you, but waiting has never been one of my strengths. I like to know the plan. I like to know where I’m headed and how everything is going to work out. Unfortunately, God has never seemed nearly as concerned about giving me the entire plan as I am about having it. Instead, He often gives me enough light for the next step and asks me to trust Him with the rest.
The older I get, the more I realize that God’s waiting room isn’t really about waiting at all. It’s about what happens to our faith while we’re there. Because sooner or later every waiting season brings us to a crossroads. We reach a place where we must decide whether we’re going to continue trusting God even though we don’t understand what He’s doing, or whether we’re going to allow discouragement, disappointment, and doubt to slowly pull us away from His promises.
The Crossroads in God’s Waiting Room
At first, most waiting seasons begin with hope.
We pray with expectation. We believe God is working. We trust that the answer is coming. Then time begins to pass, and with every passing day the gap between what God has promised and what we can physically see seems to grow wider.
That’s often when the questions begin.
Did I hear God correctly?
Is He still working?
Does He still remember me?
Should I keep believing?
Those questions don’t necessarily come because we lack faith. Sometimes they come simply because we’re human. We live in a world where we can see our circumstances, but we cannot always see what God is doing behind the scenes.
David understood that struggle. In Psalm 27:13-14 he wrote:
“I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.”
I love the honesty in those verses. David didn’t pretend waiting was easy. He admitted there were moments when he felt like he might faint beneath the weight of it all. Yet he also understood that courage isn’t found in having all the answers. Courage is choosing to believe God is still good even when we don’t understand what He’s doing.
That is the crossroads every believer eventually faces. Will we continue trusting God when we cannot see the outcome? Will we continue believing His Word when our circumstances seem to tell a different story? Will we allow disappointment to take root, or will we allow our faith to grow deeper?
The waiting room has a way of forcing us to answer those questions.
What God’s Waiting Room Taught Me
I know what it’s like to sit at that crossroads because I’ve been there myself.
My husband and I waited ten years for the promise of a child. Looking back now, I can say those words in a single sentence, but living through those years felt very different. At first, I was confident. I believed God would answer. I never imagined how long the journey would actually be.
As the years passed, however, I found myself facing questions I never expected. We talked about adoption. I wondered whether I had misunderstood what God had placed in my heart. I watched time continue moving forward while the answer I was praying for seemed to remain just out of reach.
The hardest part wasn’t the waiting itself. The hardest part was learning how to trust God when I couldn’t see what He was doing.
That is where the real battle often takes place. It isn’t always a battle against our circumstances. More often it’s a battle over what we’re going to believe while we’re still waiting.
I could have allowed disappointment to take root. I could have stopped believing. I could have convinced myself that God had forgotten me. Instead, I made a choice to keep showing up at His feet. Some days that faith felt strong. Other days it felt fragile. But regardless of how I felt, I kept bringing my prayers back to Him.
Eventually, God answered that prayer. Yet even then, the waiting room wasn’t over.
Before my daughter was born, I developed preeclampsia. There were moments when both of our lives were in danger. After her birth, I watched her spend time in the NICU and wondered what would happen next. Later came another season of heartbreak when we lost our son. Then, when I became pregnant again, fear and doubt tried to creep back in. Bed rest, extra doctor visits, and countless prayers became part of that journey as well.
Looking back now, I realize something I couldn’t fully see in those moments. Every one of those seasons brought me back to the same question: Will I trust God even when I don’t understand?
One of my favorite verses became an anchor for me during those years:
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” — Proverbs 3:5-6
Trusting God is relatively easy when everything makes sense. Trusting Him when we don’t understand requires something much deeper. It requires us to believe that God’s character is trustworthy even when His plan is unclear.
The Danger of Letting Go Too Soon
One of the greatest dangers in God’s waiting room is becoming weary.
Not weary of God.
Not weary of prayer.
Just weary of waiting.
Hebrews 10:35-36 speaks directly to those moments:
“Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.”
What a powerful reminder!
After you’ve prayed.
After you’ve trusted.
After you’ve obeyed.
After you’ve done everything you know to do.
Don’t cast away your confidence.
Sometimes we assume that if we haven’t seen the answer yet, nothing is happening. Yet Scripture repeatedly shows us that God is often working in places we cannot see. While we focus on the delay, He is often preparing people, circumstances, timing, and even our own hearts for what lies ahead.
The waiting room can be frustrating because we naturally want movement. We want progress. We want evidence that something is happening. Yet faith has never been about trusting what we can see. Faith has always been about trusting the One who sees what we cannot.
What if God is working behind the scenes in ways we don’t yet understand? What if the answer is closer than we realize? What if the waiting room is accomplishing something far greater than we can currently imagine?
Digging Your Heels In
Over the years, I’ve learned that the answer isn’t found in giving up. The answer is found in digging your heels in and staying at the feet of Jesus.
The waiting room has a way of exposing what we’re truly leaning on. When everything is moving according to our plans, it’s easy to feel confident. But when the answer tarries, we quickly discover whether our confidence is in God or in our ability to understand what He is doing.
That’s why prayer became so important to me during those seasons.
Not because prayer was a formula.
Not because I believed I could somehow force God’s hand.
Prayer became important because it continually brought me back to the feet of Jesus. There were days when I didn’t have answers. Days when I didn’t understand. Days when fear tried to convince me that God had forgotten me. Prayer became the place where I laid those fears down and exchanged my questions for trust. It became the place where God reminded me of who He is when I couldn’t understand what He was doing.
Many times my prayer wasn’t, “God, get me out of this waiting room.”
Instead, it was, “God, help me stay at Your feet while I’m here.”
Over time, I discovered that prayer wasn’t simply changing my circumstances. Prayer was changing me. It was strengthening my faith, deepening my dependence upon God, and teaching me to pray His Word instead of my emotions. It was teaching me to look back at His faithfulness whenever doubt tried to creep in.
Paul provides a powerful example of this in regards to Abraham in Romans 4:20-21:
“He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.”
Abraham wasn’t focused on what he could see. He was focused on the God who made the promise. That doesn’t mean he never had questions. It means he chose not to let those questions become greater than his confidence in God’s ability to fulfill what He had spoken.
Prayer Changes Things in God’s Waiting Room
When most people hear the phrase “prayer changes things,” they immediately think about circumstances changing. Sometimes that’s exactly what happens. God opens a door. He provides a miracle. He answers in a way that leaves no doubt that His hand was involved.
But I’ve learned that prayer often changes us before it changes our circumstances.
One of my favorite verses hangs on the wall in my kitchen where I see it every day:
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” — Hebrews 11:1
I’ve looked at those words countless times over the years, especially during seasons when I couldn’t see what God was doing. Faith isn’t believing after the answer arrives. Faith is choosing to trust God before the answer comes. It’s believing that God is working even when we cannot see the evidence with our natural eyes.
As much as I wanted answers during those waiting room seasons, what I needed most was a deeper relationship with the One who held the answers. Looking back now, I can see that while I was praying for God to change my circumstances, He was also using those circumstances to strengthen my faith.
The waiting room wasn’t wasted.
The tears weren’t wasted.
The prayers weren’t wasted.
And if you’re sitting in God’s waiting room today, yours isn’t wasted either.
A Resource for God’s Waiting Room
One book that has encouraged me in this area is God Has a Waiting Room by Kim Haney. While the stories and lessons in this post come from my own experiences and what God has taught me through Scripture, her book offers additional encouragement for anyone walking through a season of waiting and learning to trust God’s timing.
Want to Read the Full Story?
The experiences I briefly shared here only scratch the surface of what God taught me during those waiting room seasons. If you’d like to read the full stories behind those miracles, you can find them here:
💛 The Pain of Unanswered Prayers
Looking back now, I can see God’s hand woven throughout the stories, even in the moments when I couldn’t understand what He was doing.
Conclusion
If you find yourself sitting in God’s waiting room today, I want to encourage you not to make a permanent decision based on a temporary season. Don’t allow what you can’t see to convince you that God isn’t working. Don’t allow the silence to convince you that He isn’t listening, and don’t allow the length of the journey to cause you to forget the faithfulness He has already shown.
When doubt comes—and it will—look back. Remember the prayers He has answered. Remember the doors He has opened. Remember the times He carried you when you couldn’t carry yourself. Then dig your heels in a little deeper and stay at His feet a little longer. Pray His Word. Trust His heart. Keep walking forward one step at a time, even when you can’t see where the path is leading.
The waiting room is not proof that God has forgotten you. Sometimes it’s simply the place where He is growing a faith strong enough to carry the promise when it finally arrives.
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Remember, I’m always praying for you, even if I don’t know who you are.
