Are you in a waiting season right now? Can you sense that you are on the potter’s wheel right now? We feel the torment of the breaking and the making. We are spinning, out of our control. The master potter has ordained for each of us a season of waiting. As long as we are in His hands, we are in His plan. (Read II Corinthians 4:17–18.) The waiting is working for us. In the end we will be fashioned for His holy purpose.
We have this treasure in earthen vessels. We are each on the master potter’s wheel. He is patiently and perfectly preparing us for His purposes. We are wondering. We are waiting. Our season will change. This season of waiting will yield to a new season of service, and we will be well-suited for where He places us. Don’t grow weary with the waiting. A season is coming that will be our due season, but only if we are willing to wait.
Wait on the Lord
“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord” (Psalm 27:14). It doesn’t seem too complicated. He is the master. He is the potter. He is our Father. We are only the clay. We are His workmanship. Our biggest burden is the waiting. Can we wait on the Lord? Can we trust Him for the final reveal?
The longer I serve Him and the longer I am with Him, the more I become like Him. Click To TweetPaul wrote, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22–23). Long-suffering. The very word sends a chill down the spine. Does anyone really want to suffer? Perhaps if the fruit of the Spirit produced short suffering, we might be convinced to let it play out. But who wants to suffer long? Usually while we are waiting, the potter’s wheel is spinning. All the while we are feeling the pain of the progress of God’s purpose in our lives.
Long-suffering comes from a Greek word that speaks of patience, endurance, constancy, steadfastness, and perseverance. We are all too familiar with the season of waiting. Long-suffering is probably the best word to describe what we “grow” through when God is shaping us and making us into what we ought to be. The irony of ironies is this: While we are waiting on God, He is waiting on us. He is long-suffering toward us (II Peter 3:9), giving each of us a space of grace to develop into the vessel that will be perfect for His purpose for us.
While Noah Was Building the Ark, God Was Building Noah.
Waiting has a way of separating us from the cynics and the skeptics. Surely while Noah was building the ark, God was building Noah.
What can He teach me through my endurance? What is the Lord waiting on me to become, so I can be ready for what He is preparing for me?
He was becoming a preacher of righteousness. His lifestyle of consecration and commitment was proclaiming the will of God for his generation. We can see this clearly as we look back to his day. However, for Noah there had to be some frustration that accompanied the weariness of the waiting. He could not have foreseen that day many thousands of years later when Jesus would use him as an example for end-time believers. “As it was in the days of Noah,” remains a high-impact analogy in our era because one man, Noah, waded through the quagmire of the waiting. (See Matthew 24:37–39; Luke 17:26–27.)
The simplicity of Noah’s resolve referenced in Genesis 6 is admirable: “Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he” (Genesis 6:22). Can you see a parallel in your own pathway to God’s purpose? Have you waited long enough to discover that His ways are high above your ways, and His thoughts are above and beyond any of your wildest imaginations? This is the testimony of the heroes of the faith who serve now as a great cloud of witnesses for each of us: “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise” (Hebrews 10:35–36).
Paul encouraged the Corinthian church when he wrote, “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (II Corinthians 5:7, KJV). We do not need to see what God is doing. We just need to stay on the potter’s wheel by faith. How can I please God in this season? What can He teach me through my endurance? What is the Lord waiting on me to become, so I can be ready for what He is preparing for me?
Seasons of Waiting
What are you waiting for? Jesus said, “In your patience possess ye your souls” (Luke 21:19). Are you waiting to possess a promise? Are you waiting to possess a purpose? Perhaps the reality is, you are waiting to possess your soul. Who are you now compared to the you God is patiently preparing you to become? Can you trust in the providence of His process?
The waiting season provides the ultimate proving ground for our obedience to God’s plan. God has promised and I am waiting. I am not sure why there is a delay, but while I am waiting, I will obey. (See Job 10–12.) The waiting season is my season to trust in the Lord and to delight in His presence and in His Word. (See Psalm 37:3–7.) I am waiting, but I am not wasting time. I am waiting, but I am not wasting away. I am drawing nearer to the Lord through this process. The longer I serve Him and the longer I am with Him, the more I become like Him.
Peter waited through his own failures, and he became the great preacher of Pentecost.
The master potter’s wheel is well worn and well proven. “As for God, his way is perfect” (Psalm 18:30). From Bible times to modern times, His workmanship reveals that good things come to and through those who are willing to wait. Moses waited in the wilderness, and he was molded into a great deliverer for Israel. Elisha waited at the feet of Elijah, and he received a double portion. Peter waited through his own failures, and he became the great preacher of Pentecost. Ministers, pastors, missionaries, and saints everywhere have been formed and fashioned from seasons of waiting. (See II Timothy 2:19–21.)
Resources and Links
God Has a Waiting Room – This book is for the child of God who has questions. The waiting room teaches us how to respond to an unseen world through works of faith until our promises become manifest. It all depends on how we respond during the