How long, Lord, how long?

Maybe just maybe... there's joy in the waiting.

I think most people know the Psalm or at least this feeling. The agonizing pain that comes with waiting after you’ve begged The Lord to deliver something for so long. It’s hard enough to watch person after person, so it appears, to easily acquire what you’ve desperately wanted, but it’s even harder to remember, it may never be yours. 

I want to highlight my sister today because that was her story. 

If you’ve been around for a while, my sister was a guest writer on the blog back in October. She shared about her faith in the waiting as she watched her fellow college grads go to grad school, get married, and move (to the city she wanted to be in the most). 

My sister was born a restless spirit- not an anxious spirit (that’s me), but restless. We called her Tigger as a little girl because she always wanted to do everything at once; go everywhere at once. Despite going to college in the heart of COVID, she managed to live, study and/or visit Nashville, Tennessee, California, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, London and Paris, all within four years. 

When she graduated in May of 2023, her dream was to go to New York City, live in an apartment with friends and work/do life in The Big Apple. The summer consisted of applying to jobs, getting rejected by those jobs, and watching all of her friends get those jobs and move into the apartment that was supposed to be theirs. 

It took until October for a (remote) job to come through, but with one exception– she couldn’t work from California or New York City. Grateful to have a job, but discouraged it kept her from fulfilling her dream, she accepted the job with hope she would still make it to New York. 

As a big sister, it was devastating to watch my sister wrestle with having to watch her friends live her dream in New York. She’s strong, but I know it was painful to hear “no” after “no” after “no,” while also celebrating all of the joyous “yes” answers her friends were experiencing. 

It feels cruel when it feels like God is not only withholding good from you, but forcing you to watch others get, not only blessings, but the blessing you’ve been praying and striving for for so long. 

“How long, Lord, how long? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?” (Psalm 13:1). Thank goodness our circumstances are not measurements of God’s goodness. We also know that God does not withhold good from us (Psalm 84:11). 

What’s good for one may not be good for us (or at least for now), but how do we trust that God’s ways are not our ways (Isaiah 58:11) and that He has good plans to help us, not harm us (Jeremiah 29:11)? 

After crying with my sister from the pain of having to wait, I prayed with her, and for her, and reminded her that faith is like a muscle. You need to exercise and practice it in order to strengthen it. But when God feels silent, maybe even cruel, and you think the waiting is going to cause spontaneous combustion, what do you do? 

I’ll tell you what my sister did; she prayed, and she lived where she was. When she prayed, she didn’t just pray for the desire of her heart, she prayed faithfully for God’s will to be done. And when I say that she lived where she was, I mean she got busy and truly lived where God had her– busy and truly lived where God had her– even though it wasn’t where she hoped it would be. 

While living in Chicago with our parents, she spent time with old and new friends in the area, she helped my mom support our aging and declining grandma, she took trips to visit friends, and invested in training for a half-marathon. I was so proud of her, and noticed an obvious change in her spiritual and emotional growth all in less than a year. 

Romans 5:3-4 says, “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” Almost 365 days later from the day she graduated college, God provided her a job in New York City and a place to live. 

I don’t know why God made her heart wait, but I do believe He blessed her for being faithful to what He provided her. Isaiah 30:18 says, “Blessed are those who wait for the Lord.” My sister was already excited to start a season in New York, but now I think she’s even more excited for it now; and I am so excited to see her thrive in this next chapter God has for her life. 

I think in a way, we’re all waiting on the Lord for something (maybe a few things). So on the days when it feels like you can’t wait one more second, take a deep, slow breath, and say “Lord, I don’t know what You’re doing, but I trust Your will, and I trust You are for me, not against me.” 

And maybe just maybe, you’ll find joy in the waiting.