I’ve Heard It Said, “Good Things Come to Those Who Wait”
This article is part of the I’ve Heard It Said series.
Waiting in a Christian Way
You may have heard it said that good things come to those who wait. Is that true? Well, my answer would be perhaps.
In fact, the Bible says that God acts, or God works, for those who wait for him. In the Bible, there’s a direct connection between waiting and God’s activity. In fact, there’s a promise in the Bible that you can take courage and you can receive strength as you wait upon the Lord.
Isaiah 64 says that young men won’t fall and grow exhausted. They won’t run and become weary. Instead, they’ll mount up with wings like eagles. So the Bible offers some pretty significant promises to those who wait. Those are really good promises—promises that anybody would want.
When you’re in a gap moment, who doesn’t want to receive help and grace and peace? Those are really good things. James uses the example of the farmer as a person who has to wait for something. And the Bible uses that as an example of a way in which a believer could be exhorted to be faithful in their perseverance. James uses the illustration to say a farmer plants and then has to wait. So something good is going to come by the waiting, which is the harvest. So waiting is a part of the created order. It’s a part of our humanity. To be human is to wait.
Waiting Isn't a Waste
Mark Vroegop
In Waiting Isn’t a Waste, author Mark Vroegop explores 6 characteristics of waiting, calling believers to lean on Christ when we are uncertain about our lives, but certain about God.
But with a particular nuance, to be a Christian means that you wait uniquely. Maybe another way to say it is that good things come to those who wait in a Christian way; meaning, that God is ready to provide the kind of grace, the help, the gifts we need. He often links waiting into those because think of what would happen—think of what you or I would be like—if we never had to wait for anything. Anything we wanted, we got immediately. In fact, in our present day in our culture, our wait times are getting shorter, and it’s actually making us less patient, less resilient, and a bit more demanding.
Do good things come to those who wait? Yes and no. It kind of depends. It’s a true statement that the Bible affirms when God is in the equation, because waiting often involves a great deal of uncertainty as to what it is that’s going on in life. And that uncertainty can lead us to a deeper intimacy with our Savior and with the Creator of the universe.
Additionally, as God answers prayer, as he provides what it is that he knows that we need, we can look back on our life and realize, Oh, that waiting was hard, but it actually was good. And in that respect, yes, good things come to those who wait, especially when you’re waiting on God.
Mark Vroegop is the author of Waiting Isn’t a Waste: The Surprising Comfort of Trusting God in the Uncertainties of Life.
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