Discovering the Power of Waiting

A Sermon Manuscript Anchor Text: Isaiah 40:31 

Supporting Text: Psalm 27:14; Lamentations 3:25–26; Habakkuk 2:3; Psalm 40:1–3; Genesis 21:1–2

INTRODUCTION — “There Is Power in the Pause”

Turn with me to the prophet Isaiah, chapter forty, verse thirty-one. The verse that has carried more weary saints across more hard seasons than perhaps any other in Scripture:

“But those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31, KJV)

Tell your neighbour, “There is power in the pause.”

We live in the most impatient generation that has ever drawn breath. We have instant coffee, instant messages, instant downloads, instant everything. We have been trained by the world to despise delay. If a page takes more than three seconds to load, we are frustrated. If a line moves too slowly, we change lanes. We have come to believe that waiting is wasted time — a dead space, an empty interval, a punishment to be endured.

But the Word of God turns our thinking upside down this morning. The Bible does not present waiting as wasted time. The Bible presents waiting as one of the most productive activities in the kingdom of God. Look at the promise again — it is not the strong who renew their strength; it is those who wait. It is not the fast who mount up with wings; it is those who wait. Heaven attaches its greatest renewals not to our running but to our waiting.

Now understand: biblical waiting is not what we usually mean by the word. When we say “wait,” we picture a man slumped in a waiting room, bored, passive, doing nothing. But the Hebrew word here, qavah, carries the picture of a cord being twisted together, of a rope being braided strand by strand, growing stronger as it is bound. To wait on the Lord is not to sit limp and lifeless — it is to be bound together with God, your weakness braided into His strength until the cord becomes unbreakable. Waiting is not the absence of activity; it is the presence of God doing something in you while you wait for Him to do something for you.

So I have come this morning to help you discover the power of waiting. I want to preach under four headings:

First, Waiting Renews Your Strength — what happens in you while you wait. Second, Waiting Refines Your Character — what waiting builds. Third, Waiting Positions You for the Promise — why God’s timing is never late. Fourth, Waiting Is Active, Not Passive — how to wait the right way.

If you are in a waiting season this morning — and somebody here is — God has a word that is going to redeem your delay.

I. WAITING RENEWS YOUR STRENGTH — What God Does In You While You Wait

Let us start exactly where our text starts: with the promise of renewed strength. “Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.”

But look at the context, because it changes everything. Read the verses just before it:

“Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary… Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.” (Isaiah 40:28–31, NIV)

Notice the contrast. Even youths — the strongest, fastest, most energetic among us — grow tired, stumble, and fall. Natural strength has a limit. Self-effort runs dry. The most gifted person operating in their own power will eventually collapse. But “those who wait upon the Lord” tap into the strength of the One who “will not grow tired or weary.” When you wait, you stop drawing from your own depleting reservoir and you start drawing from the inexhaustible ocean of God.

And here is the beautiful word — “renew.” The Hebrew idea is to exchange. You hand God your worn-out, used-up strength, and He gives you fresh strength in its place — His own. It is the picture of changing a garment: you take off the rags of your exhaustion and put on the robe of His might. This is why the waiting room of God is never a place of decay — it is a place of exchange.

And look at the threefold result, because it is in descending order of difficulty, which is the genius of the verse. First, “they shall mount up with wings as eagles” — that is the spectacular, the breakthrough, the soaring moment. Then, “they shall run, and not be weary” — that is the seasons of intense effort, the sprints of life. But last, and hardest of all, “they shall walk, and not faint” — that is the daily grind, the ordinary Monday-to-Friday, the unglamorous step-after-step of faithful living.

Beloved, anyone can fly on a mountaintop day. But the deepest miracle of the waiting life is the strength to walk and not faint — to keep going in the ordinary when there are no wings and no applause. That is the strength waiting produces. The eagle soars, but the eagle that has learned to wait can also walk through the valley without collapsing.

So if you are in a season where you feel you are wasting away, where your own strength has run out — that is not the end of you. That is the precise condition God designed waiting to address. Stop flapping. Wait on the Lord. He will renew what you cannot manufacture.

II. WAITING REFINES YOUR CHARACTER — What the Delay Is Building

Here is the second discovery: waiting is one of God’s chief tools for refining character. God is far more interested in what He is doing in you during the wait than in what He is doing for you at the end of it. The delay is never empty — it is a workshop.

Consider the men and women of faith. Why did God so often delay His promises?

Look at Abraham. God promised him a son. How long did Abraham wait? Twenty-five years. He was seventy-five when the promise came; he was a hundred when Isaac was born. And what was God doing in those twenty-five years? He was building a man whose faith could become the father of nations. The promise was a baby, but the process produced a patriarch. And when the time fully came:

“Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him.” (Genesis 21:1–2, NIV)

“At the very time God had promised.” Not early — Abraham would have grabbed it early and produced an Ishmael, which he did try. Not late. At the very time. The wait was not God being slow; the wait was God being thorough.

Consider Joseph. Dreamer at seventeen, prime minister at thirty. Thirteen years of pit, slavery, false accusation, and prison in between. And what does the psalmist say happened in those years?

“…till the time that his word came to pass; the word of the Lord tested him.” (Psalm 105:19, NKJV)

The word of the Lord tested him. Joseph had a word; the waiting tested the word and tested the man — until the boy with a dream became a man fit to save nations. The prison was not a detour from the palace; the prison was the road to the palace.

Consider David. Anointed king as a teenager; did not sit on the throne until perhaps fifteen years later. In between: the cave, the wilderness, the spear of Saul. And out of that waiting came not just a king, but a worshipper, a psalmist, a man after God’s own heart. The crown was the reward; the wait was the making.

Hear what the New Testament says the process is producing:

“…we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.” (Romans 5:3–4, NKJV)

There is a divine assembly line in the delay — pressure produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, character produces hope. James says it plainly: “Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:4). The thing you are waiting for is not as valuable as the person you are becoming while you wait.

So I ask you — what if the delay you have been resenting is the very tool God is using to make you into the person who can carry the promise? An untested vessel cannot hold a great anointing. God does not waste your wait. He is building something.

III. WAITING POSITIONS YOU FOR THE PROMISE — God’s Timing Is Never Late

Now hear the third discovery, and let it settle every anxious heart: God’s timing is never late. The wait is not God forgetting — the wait is God positioning.

Hear the prophet Habakkuk, who was crying out over a delayed promise:

“For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.” (Habakkuk 2:3, NIV)

Underline “an appointed time.” Your promise has an appointment on the calendar of heaven. It “lingers” only from your vantage point — from God’s vantage point it “will not delay.” There is a fixed, divine moment, and God is never early and never late; He is always on time.

This is why the New Testament says of the greatest promise of all:

“But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman…” (Galatians 4:4, NIV)

“When the fullness of time had come.” For four thousand years humanity waited for a Saviour. Was God slow? No — God was arranging history. He was waiting for the Roman roads to be built so the gospel could travel, for the Greek language to spread so the gospel could be read, for the precise moment when everything was ready. The longest wait in human history ended exactly on schedule. If God can manage the timing of redemption, He can manage the timing of your situation.

Hear David’s testimony of a wait that ended well:

“I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock… And he hath put a new song in my mouth.” (Psalm 40:1–3, KJV)

Notice the order: first “I waited patiently,” then “he inclined unto me.” The waiting came before the lifting. And what came out of the pit with David? A new song. The very testimony you will sing tomorrow is being written in the waiting room today.

So stop reading your delay as denial. A delay is not a no. Lazarus was dead four days before Jesus came — but Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death… it is for God’s glory” (John 11:4). The delay that looked like abandonment became the stage for resurrection. What looks like God being late is very often God arranging a greater glory than you asked for.

IV. WAITING IS ACTIVE, NOT PASSIVE — How to Wait the Right Way

Finally — and this is crucial — we must learn how to wait, because not all waiting is created equal. Biblical waiting is active, not passive. It is not the waiting of a man asleep on a bench; it is the waiting of a soldier on watch, a servant on standby, a farmer in season.

First, wait with courage, not collapse. Hear David:

“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” (Psalm 27:14, KJV)

Notice waiting is paired with courage. Passive waiting breeds fear and self-pity. Biblical waiting strengthens the heart. And see how David repeats himself — “wait, I say, on the Lord.” When the wait gets long, you must preach to your own soul and say it again: wait!

Second, wait with expectancy, like a watchman at dawn. Hear the psalmist:

“I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.” (Psalm 130:5–6, NIV)

The watchman does not doubt the dawn. He cannot make the sun rise one second faster, yet he scans the horizon with confidence because he knows it is coming. That is how to wait — not wringing your hands, but watching the horizon, certain the morning is on its way.

Third, wait while still working, like a farmer. Hear James:

“Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains.” (James 5:7, NIV)

The farmer waits — but the farmer is not idle. He plows, he plants, he tends, he weeds. He cannot make the seed grow, but he does everything that prepares for the harvest. Active waiting means you keep serving, keep sowing, keep being faithful in the small things while you wait for the big thing. Don’t quit your post during the wait. Do the next right thing.

And fourth, wait in the goodness of God, not in complaint. Hear Jeremiah, even in the ruins of Lamentations:

“The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:25–26, NIV)

“It is good to wait.” Not merely tolerable — good. And it is “those whose hope is in Him” — not in the outcome, but in Him — who find the goodness. Wait quietly, the prophet says: not anxiously, not bitterly, but resting in the settled goodness of a God who cannot fail you.

So when you wait — wait with courage, wait with expectancy, wait while working, and wait in His goodness. That is the kind of waiting that taps the power.