Have you ever tried to potty train a child or train a stubborn dog? One day, long after you want to throw in the towel, they get it. What about breaking a wild stallion? If you have ever watched someone train an animal, it involves redirecting their inner desires into useful habits. It is a slow, daily process. It is all patience and repetition knowing that at some point the animal will get it.
Believe it or not, there are people who train little human beings for a living! Growing little people into responsible adults is not a job for the weak-hearted. It takes so much time. It takes day after day of intentionality from parents and teachers. Even when there is a bad season, the teacher and parent must continue in the pursuit of a child’s maturity. Why does this process of becoming take so much time? It seems like most of the job is waiting. But why?
What Waiting Teaches
Let’s look at this from the learner’s perspective:
- Waiting allows time to notice others and look outward.
- Waiting redirects our path, pointing us to new directions.
- Waiting teaches us to calm our hearts when they want to run.
- Waiting changes fight-or-flight into quiet contemplation.
- Waiting gives us time to think, heal, grow, and try again.
- Waiting builds patience, self-control, wisdom, and relationships
- Waiting develops and perfects us.
Waiting is a tool God uses to accomplish what nothing else can. Think of the life of Moses. He lived 40 years in Egypt only to mess up and spend forty years herding sheep. Then when he finally gets to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, they wander in the desert for 40 years before they make it to the promised land. Perhaps it took 40 desert years to change the slave mindset of the Israelites into dependence on God. What else but time can teach us dependence on God? What else but time can prove to us that we are not the ones in control?
A Life Measured in Waiting
According to Google, our average life expectancy is about 73 years.
That’s:
- 73 Christmases
- 73 Easters
- 73 seasons of warm summer sun
- About 876 full moons
- Roughly 37,393 mornings, lunches, evenings, and nights
- 639,918 hours
- 38,395,080 minutes!
(Okay, we do sleep about 12 million of those minutes — but we’re still left with about 26 million waking minutes.)
And that, my friend, is a whole lot of waiting.
No wonder adults just want a nap!
Life is a long, steady journey, and we fight that process nearly every one of those waking 26 million minutes. We want more, and we want it faster. But the secret is hidden in the waiting. Waiting builds anticipation so the reward is sweeter. It deepens our joy, strengthens our endurance, and shapes our character. Maybe it’s time to stop yelling at the microwave to hurry up. We’re playing the long game. Like a marathon runner, we have to pace ourselves — if we don’t slow down, we’ll burn out. Waiting isn’t wasted time; it’s where the real work of growth happens.
“Where in your life is God using waiting to grow you today?”
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.