What Happens When Nothing Happens

We hate waiting.

We just do.

We have apps to skip the line. We have shipping that gets it to our front door by tomorrow morning. We want the answer, the fix, the breakthrough, the clarity, the open door.

And we want it right now.

Because to us, waiting feels like a glitch in the system. We tend to think of waiting as a gap. A void. An empty, useless space between where we are and where we actually want to be.

Like a waiting room. You just sit there. Staring at a five-year-old magazine. Doing absolutely nothing.

But what if spiritual waiting isn’t passive?

What if waiting on the Lord isn’t a delay in your story… what if it’s a crucial chapter of your story?

What if it is the most profoundly active thing you could possibly do?

See, when the scriptures talk about waiting on the Lord, it’s not about twiddling your thumbs. It’s not about spiritual resignation. It’s about tension.

Think of a seed buried deep in the dark, heavy dirt. From the outside, it looks like nothing is happening. It looks abandoned. It feels like the gardener forgot all about it.

But beneath the surface? Everything is happening.

The shell is breaking. Roots are desperately reaching and digging deep into the soil. True, sustainable growth is occurring. You cannot get the massive, unshakeable oak tree without the dark, quiet, excruciatingly slow work of the seed in the dirt.

It’s in the waiting that our false idols are slowly stripped away. It’s in the waiting that we realize we aren’t actually in control. (And man, we love pretending we are in control, don’t we?) It’s in the waiting that our faith stops being a neat little transaction with the Divine—”I do this for you, God, so you give me that”—and starts becoming a real, breathing relationship.

We finally discover that God isn’t a vending machine. He is a presence.

And sometimes, the greatest, most profound gift He can possibly give us is the uncomfortable silence that forces us to stop talking, stop rushing, and start listening for His heartbeat.

The discipline of waiting isn’t about ignoring reality; it’s about anchoring yourself so deeply in the goodness of God that the rushing world around you loses its grip on your soul. It’s active trust. It’s rebellious hope.

So, if you find yourself in the waiting room right now—frustrated, tired, wondering if God lost your file—I want to invite you to stop trying to escape the wait, and start leaning into it.

Because the soil is doing its work.

As you go about your week, I want to leave you with three questions to chew on. Let these sit with you. Ponder them:

1. In your moments of profound discouragement: When you’re exhausted and ready to throw in the towel, what if this divine delay isn’t a punishment, but a deliberate setup to build a deeper, more resilient reliance on His strength rather than your own?

2. In your season of endless searching: When you are desperately looking for the next right answer, are you willing to sit in the uncomfortable, quiet mystery of “I don’t know yet” and trust that God’s presence is enough for today?

3. In your messy time of transition: In that terrifying, beautiful space between what was and what will be, how can you actively tend to the soil of your soul today, instead of just frantically rushing toward tomorrow?

Something more to ponder today.

-Grace & Peace,
Pastor Scott.