To be good at prayer, we must get better at waiting. This sermon explores the relationship between waiting, faith, and answered prayer. Click the link above to watch it or read it below.

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If I am on the highway and approaching a toll gate, I survey the road in front of me the way Peyton Manning surveyed a football field. I take in how many vehicles are in each line. I subconsciously note the kind of vehicles. (That spotless, 12-year-old, Buick will probably move more slowly than 10-year-old Charger with the dented front bumper.) I choose my lane and commit. Sometimes it is a completion. My lane moves fastest, and all is right in Shayne World. Sometimes it is an incompletion: another lane moves faster than mine. Sometimes it is a sack: the toll gate doesn’t open and I get sandwiched in a line of cars.

If I’m running errands and need to make four stops while I am out, I plan my route so that there is as little overlap as possible. I estimate the time of each stop. I take into consideration traffic flow. I do my best not to waste a single minute.

It is a game for me, but a game I take too seriously. I am good at rushing; I am not good at waiting—but I am getting better.

To be good at praying, we need to get better at waiting. This is a theme repeated throughout Scripture. Even the greatest of God’s people needs to wait. Hosea wrote, “So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God” (Hosea 12:6).       

This is the prophet Jeremiah (Lamentations 3:22-25): “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” (Only those who say, “The Lord is my portion,” can go on to say, “I will wait for him.”) And then verse 25: “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him.”

To God, Isaiah says: “From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.” (Isaiah 64:4).

Christians are, almost by definition, those who have “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven” (1 Thessalonians 1:9). Jesus left his first followers with instructions to “wait for the Gift my Father promised…” (Acts 1:4). The church didn’t begin by doing but by waiting.

Waiting is the rule, not the exception. St. Paul tells us that “creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” (Romans 8:19) – and we wait with it. Waiting is a skill we must master, especially when it comes to prayer. Prayer is more like slow roasting than it is like microwaving. Rush it, take the prayer out early, and it won’t be done. The psalmist said to God, “In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation” (Psalm 5:3, NIV).

It is clear in Scripture that those who pray must learn to wait on God, but we are not good at it, and we do not like it. We would rather rush around. God’s Old Testament people were the same way. The prophet Isaiah says to them: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. But you were unwilling” (Isaiah 30:15).

Instead of waiting on God, which requires faith, they rushed into action and missed the good things God had planned for them. “Therefore,” the prophet says, “the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.”

I’ll mention two more things before we read our text from Hebrews 11. Even Jesus, Son of God and Lord of men, had to wait. In fact, he is still waiting. After writing about Jesus’s great sacrifice, the author of Hebrews says that he is: “waiting … until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.” (Hebrews 10:13). How about that? Even Jesus waits.

God himself waits. In that passage from Isaiah, we read that all who wait for God are blessed. But just before that we read, “The Lord waits to be gracious to you.” We are keeping the God of the universe waiting—waiting for us to be capable of receiving his blessing. Even God waits.

There is no getting around it. Everyone waits. One man who did it well was Abraham, the man of faith. That is no coincidence, for faith is essential to waiting. Without faith, we cannot please God (as the author of Hebrews put it), but neither can we wait for him. When faith fails, we run ahead and try to force things to come out right on our own. We see this correlation between faith and waiting in the story of Abraham. He can help us understand the role of faith in waiting and the role of waiting in the lives of God’s people.

Let me read what the author of Hebrews says about Abraham in Hebrews 11, starting with verse 8. Take note of the repeated refrain, “By faith…”

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised…”

In other words, they were still waiting. The power to wait on God comes from God and reaches us through faith. Faith itself is not the power but rather the transmission line that conducts the power. The electricity in your house is not produced by the electrical wires that run to and within your house, but by the power plant. But when the wires are broken, you lose power. When faith short-circuits, you lose a different kind of power: the power to “be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” (Ps. 37:7).

“Abraham, the man of faith” (as the Apostle Paul called him) was able to wait because he believed; he trusted God. He was not so much waiting for things – land or descendants – as he was waiting for the Lord. Persons inspire faith; events and things do not. Because “Abraham believed God,” as the Scriptures repeatedly and emphatically state, he was able to wait. Trying to make yourself believe in a good outcome will not help you wait; believing in the good God will.

In verses 8-10, we are given the when, what, where, how, and why of Abraham’s faith. We find the When in verse 8: “By faith Abraham, when called . . .” Faith is not something we can manufacture from our own resources whenever we find ourselves in need of it. Faith is voice-activated. It is triggered by God’s word.

Today’s Smart TVs are voice-activated: just speak and your favorite show will appear. All you need is an internet connection and the proper apps installed – which is to say you’ve downloaded the necessary software. Faith works in a similar way. When the necessary download (God’s Spirit) is installed, God’s word activates faith. When God called Abraham, his voice made a faith response possible. It was when God spoke to him, that Abraham was able to believe.

That was the when of faith. Next, we find the what. The text says (verse 8): “he obeyed and went.” The what of faith has two components, one of which is the same for every believer and one of which can vary from believer to believer. Whoever you are, at whatever point in history you’ve lived, in whatever strata of society you’ve occupied, the what of faith is always obedience. When Abraham received the call that makes faith possible, he obeyed.

The original language here is as economic as possible: just four words. Translating it into English requires a few more: “By faith, having been called, Abraham obeyed.” You could substitute your name or mine (or any believer’s) for Abraham’s: “By faith, having been called, Aaron obeyed.” “By faith, having been called, Jean obeyed” or “Dan obeyed” or “Andrea obeyed.”

The first component in the what of faith is a given that is always the same for every believer: obedience – “the obedience of faith,” St. Paul called it. The second is a variable, which differs for different believers (or for the same believer at different times in his or her life). Abraham obeyed (the given) and went (the variable). Shayne obeyed (the given) and preached (the variable). Aaron obeyed (the given) and forgave (the variable). Jean obeyed and told a friend about Jesus. Dan obeyed and gave money. Andrea obeyed and went to visit her neighbor. The first element of faith, obedience, is a given for you and me. The second, the variable, will often be different.

This is where we get into trouble. We overlook the first element of faith – the given, obedience – but insist on the second, the variable. Here’s what that looks like. The Lord speaks to me about giving a sizeable gift to the church. I hear him, obey, and give. All is right in Shayne World. But then I start thinking that other people should be doing what I did. If they don’t, they cannot be good Christians – and maybe they’re not Christians at all! I assume that Aaron’s and Jean’s and Dan’s and Andrea’s “andvariable” must be the same as mine.

This leads to an ugly legalism and to a judgmental spirit that Jesus strictly forbids. We should all be doing the things Scripture clearly teaches, but there is room for diversity in things Scripture is not clear about, and in matters of personal guidance – the and variables – we must expect diversity.

Next, there is the where of faith, which might better be called the wherever of faith. The end of verse 8 tells us that Abraham “did not know where he was going.” That is not surprising, for in faith there is always an element of not knowing. The unknown gives faith room to breathe and grow. The unknown may be about the where (as it was for Abraham) or it may be (and frequently is) about the how or even about the when or why, but there will be an unknown. Without it, faith has no opportunity to function. Yet we do everything in our power to eliminate the unknown. If we could, we’d wrap faith up so tight in a straightjacket of certainty that it couldn’t breathe.

Next, we have the how of faith: “By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.” The when and where and what inevitably lead to the how. If we hear God when he speaks, follow where he leads, and obey what we know, the how will eventually become clear. The danger for us is that we will demand to know the how before we say “yes” to the what. You can call that prudence or common sense, but it is a faith-buster. It makes faith impossible.

For Abraham, the how meant living like a refugee in the land promised him. Verse 9 says, “By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.” A more straightforward translation is, “By faith he sojourned in the land of promise.” Had Abraham insisted on knowing the how before he said yes to the what he might never have left the city of Ur. But God always gives grace for us to live the how, even to thrive in doing so, once we’ve said yes to the what.

Now we’ve come to the why, which we discover in verse 10: “For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” Abraham could live in tents like a refugee while waiting and praying for the land, and for descendants to occupy the land, because he was looking forward to the city with foundations. He could succeed in the insecurity of the present because he was certain of the security of the future. He remained confident, as only people of faith can, that God “rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).

Abraham was taken by God into a big story. He was promised the Land, descendants to dwell in the land, and a particular descendant who would bring blessing to all the people of the earth. That is a big story and big stories take time to unfold. Never forget that you too have been taken into a big story.

Now all of this raises a question: why did God make the promise 25 years before he intended to fulfill it? Why make Abraham wait so long? Waiting is uncomfortable. It is tedious. Pretty much everyone everywhere hates to wait. So, why not make the promise a few days – a few hours – before delivering on it?

For that matter, why make us wait at all? Why not answer the moment we pray? If God operated that way, just think how strong our faith would be!

But would it? Does the child whose parent gives her everything she wants when she wants it become more trusting or more demanding? Does she develop the mindset that will help her become a compassionate, faithful, and strong person? Probably not, for people are shaped in the waiting. Waiting is an indispensable tool in character building. You can no more build character without waiting than you can build a house without a hammer.

God has us wait because it is in the waiting that we come to know him. It was during the 25 years that Abraham waited that he grew so close to God that Scripture calls him “the friend of God.”  How did they become friends? They waited … together. Abraham didn’t just wait for God; he waited with God.

God also has us wait because it is during the waiting that his Spirit adjusts our prayers until they align with his will. This alignment is not just a matter of praying for the right things but – more importantly – becoming the kind of person who can – and regularly does – pray for the right things.

Another reason we wait: God gets greater glory from receiving our trust than from answering our prayers. I’ve often heard people say things like: “Just think how much glory God would receive if my friend was miraculously healed.” Yes, but he will receive even greater glory if you and your friend continue to trust him – and even increase your trust – while you wait.

But how do we do that? It happens with us in much the same way it happened with Abraham. First, we hear God’s word to us. Remember that faith is voice-activated —God’s voice. If, like Abraham, we obey his word to us, faith will grow. But we must expect to wait for things that we want badly, things that we are desperate to have, even things that God intends to give. Waiting is not the exception to the rule. It is the rule. Expect to wait.

Understand too that waiting does not mean wasting time. Abraham worked while he waited. He was a man of action as well as a man of faith. When we divide faith from work, we do injury to both. Faith is the root; work is the fruit. Faith is potential energy; work is kinetic energy. Faith is the flame and work the light that proceeds from the flame.

The relationship between faith and prayer is like the relationship between flame and light. If faith declines, prayer dims. And faith always declines when we wait for things rather than for God. If you are having trouble praying – struggling with doubt and ready to give up – you might be in the wrong waiting room. You’re waiting for things rather than God. Refocus your waiting on the Lord. Adopt the attitude of the prophet Micah: “But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.” (Micah 7:7).