When considering one specific word, in this case waiting, it’s important to define the terms.
In regards to waiting, there are a number of ways we could think about what it means to wait. Does it mean in the way that people wait for a plane? Does it mean in the sense of what a waiter does for diners? Or in the sense that a bride and groom do for a wedding day?

Actually, yes. All of that. Waiting is all of that at the same time. It’s a simple word—wait—but it’s more complex than it pretends to be.

Let’s take each sense of the word in turn.

Several years ago, in an effort to be closer to work, church, and school, we put our house on the market and started searching for a new house. We didn’t expect to sell our house so quickly, and our search for a home was a series of disappointments and failed contracts. Our closing date came and instead of moving into a new home as we anticipated, we moved in with friends. Homeless, and without prospects, for three months we took over their upstairs while we searched for a new home. We felt helpless, because regardless of how many times we refreshed the real estate listing app each minute, we could not make new homes pop up on the market. We couldn’t do anything to create change in our circumstances. All we could do was wait, and the waiting felt a lot like doing nothing.

Read:

But I will look to the LORD;
I will wait for the God of my salvation.
My God will hear me.
-Micah 7:7

Sometimes waiting feels like doing nothing because it is. I’m certain you have been in seasons of life when, like us, your only option was to cease striving and wait for God to do for you what you could not do for yourself.

Or maybe you’re in that season now. Maybe you are faced with the agonizing reality of your powerlessness. God’s invitation to you is to be still. Conserve your energy, and fix your gaze on him. Wait for the God of what? Oh, that’s right. The God of my SALVATION. That’s his name, which means, that’s his nature. He can’t act contrary to his nature, so if he is a God who saves, he will save me. He will save you, too.

All we have to do is get busy waiting for the God of our salvation.

Pray: Jesus, your name means “Yahweh saves.” It is no coincidence. In my waiting, in my cessation from striving, teach my heart to look to you and to wait. You hear me when I cry out to you. Salvation is your name!