I don’t like to wait. I don’t like to wait for red lights. I don’t like to wait for people in front of me, especially if they don’t move fast enough for my liking. I don’t like to wait for my computer to download and install updates. I don’t like to wait for things that God has promised me.

For prophetic people it is particularly hard to wait. We are used to seeing the future. When God shows us something, not only do we want it to happen right now, it should’ve happened yesterday already! Unfortunately, God is not nearly as much in a hurry about the things He has spoken to us as we think He should be.

This makes intercession difficult. Why pray for something that God has already promised? What’s the point? If God has spoken, it is going to happen regardless, right?

My favorite story in the Bible about waiting is about Hannah, who was desperate to have a child. Not only did her rival have children, she also taunted Hannah. Hannah was inconsolable in the temple as she was praying. To make matters worse, the priest accused her of being drunk.

Then the Lord “remembered her,” so the Bible says in 1 Samuel 1:19 (ESV). It seems, according to the story, that this is all the Lord’s doing. The fact that she was not able to have children up until this time is because, according to 1 Samuel 1:5, “the Lord had closed her womb.”

Why would God do this? He knows how desperate this woman is to have a child. Was it so that she would know that this child is from the Lord? In reality, we don’t know . . . It is telling, however, what she names her child. She called him Samuel because she said,

“I have asked for him from the Lord.” (1 Samuel 1:20)

What have you asked the Lord for? For what are you waiting on the Lord? Remember that the time of waiting is not an empty time, so to speak. God doesn’t waste anything. While we are waiting for something from the Lord, He is often preparing us.

I remember a number of years ago my children were asking me for another dog. We had had one a long time ago and we had to leave her behind when we left the Dominican Republic to come back to the United States. They kept asking me, “When, dad? When can we get another dog?” I kept telling them that we were not ready to have another dog. The gate on the side of the house was falling down along with the fence that it was attached to. Then we had to get the fence replaced with a block wall. Then the metal gates went up. When everything was ready, someone I knew had to find a place for her sister’s Golden Retriever. It was the perfect dog for our family at just the right time.

So, it is with the Lord. He often answers our prayer at just the right time.

By Ralph Veenstra