During college, I served in several churches. I preached, taught, led discipleship groups, evangelized, and organized events — the kind of responsibilities one has when pastoring a church. After graduation, my wife and I headed to seminary so I could further prepare for pastoring. I thought I was ready to pastor. A couple of weeks after arriving, I preached in an on-campus evening service.
Afterwards, one of the brothers who pastored on the weekends — typical for many students — told me, “You won’t have any problem getting a church.” Stroking my pride, without realizing it, ministry arrogance was exposed in my heart. That fellow’s comment intensified the idea I had a right to begin pastoring immediately.
But it didn’t happen.
Résumés sent gave no return. I was left waiting for an invitation to candidate as a pastor. I waited for almost two years until the invitation came. Yes, I waited, but it was not wasted. I needed that time to strip pride, humble me to depend on the Lord, teach me to serve wherever I had opportunity, and spend time in the workplace that would later give much identity with those I pastored.
A few years later, I thought my pastoral waiting had ended. But that’s not the way the Lord works in our lives and ministries. If everything is handed to us, we’re ruined, pride explodes, and life gets centered on self.
After six months in the church, expositional preaching and attempts at Christ-centered pastoral ministry stirred opposition. What do you think in such a time? You think you need to move! But all my ministry friends counseled, “Wait. Don’t move. Let the Lord teach you and use you.” That’s not what I wanted to hear. I desired to run from the trouble, but I needed to learn the discipline of waiting, for in waiting the Lord taught my family and me to trust, to depend upon the power of the gospel, to grow in prayer, and realize that shepherding the flock didn’t mean a life of ease but one that struggles to be faithful.
Waiting is never wasted
Years later, waiting prepared me to plant a church. After fast growth, we had to move locations. We ended up meeting for two years in an industrial area. Visitors quit coming. Weekly attendance plummeted. I waited. Looking back, I see it as one of my most hallowed seasons of waiting in ministry. The Lord brought me into theological and spiritual renewal and reordered the ecclesiology of our church to put us on good footing for years ahead. It was a hard season, but I’m still reaping the good benefits of it more than three decades later. That period of learning to wait led to 35 years of pastoring one church.
In God’s economy, waiting is never wasted, but always purposeful and necessary to bring His servants into conformity with His will, purpose, and power. His gifts follow waiting.
In Psalm 25, David wrestles with learning to trust the Lord, dodging his enemies, understanding the Lord’s ways, and dealing with his sins. At the heart of wrestling was his confession of waiting on the Lord. “Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame,” he declares (v. 3). Then he prays, “Make me to know your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation, for you I wait all the day long” (vv. 4–5). At the end of the prayer, he asks the Lord to be gracious to him as he feels loneliness, affliction, distress, and consciousness of his sins. Then he prays, “Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me! Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you” (vv. 16–21). Instead of launching into self-preservation and self-centered action, he learned the discipline of waiting on the Lord.
What does the spiritual discipline of waiting do in the Lord’s servants? Consider four fruits of waiting. Waiting:
1. Reminds us of who sits on the throne.
The default position of the fallen heart is self-rule. We want to be in control: what we do, how people respond to us, what we gain, where we go, how long we stay. But at the cross, we died to self-rule. “If any would come after me,” Jesus said in Luke 9:23, “let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Do we tend to renege and lean into self-rule? Waiting on the Lord dethrones us and exalts the Lord.
An 18th century English Baptist, Robert Hall Sr., came to faith in Christ and sensed the call to gospel ministry. A small village church in Arnsby invited him to preach, soon calling him as pastor. But the church trustee held the key to the church’s building, and along with cohorts, opposed the godly Hall, refusing to let him gather in the building. He patiently taught in homes while the opponents heckled them from outside. This lasted for seven years. Hall waited. He learned to rest in the Lord.
Years later, Hall’s patient, faithful dependence on the Lord was recognized by a group of young Baptist pastors, whom Hall mentored in theology, sanctification, and gospel ministry. Hall’s life of waiting on the Lord shaped William Carey, Andrew Fuller, John Ryland Jr., Samuel Pearce, John Sutcliffe, and others who gave us the modern missionary movement.
2. Reorders spiritual walk and ministry.
We can easily fall back on experience, education, training, and achievements instead of learning the patient, humble process of living in Christ and serving by the Spirit’s power. We spend years investing in tools for life and ministry, but when our dependence rests in the tools, we fail.
David found the Lord reordering everything in his life through waiting. The temptation to use his leadership and battle skills impatiently to quickly grab the throne dogged him. By God’s grace, as Psalm 25 models, he learned to wait on the Lord. In doing so, the Lord reordered his spiritual life.
Waiting forces us to pause, take a new look at the Lord, see His eternal purposes overshadowing our shortsightedness, and reorder our lives to rest in Him.
3. Prepares for more effective ministry.
No doubt, David would’ve been a heartless king had he not learned to wait on God’s timing for him to ascend the throne. All the while, the Lord prepared him for leading His people. He learned service (1 Sam. 16), courage (1 Sam. 17), loyalty (1 Sam. 18), trust (1 Sam. 19), humility (1 Sam. 20), respect (1 Sam. 24), patience (1 Sam. 25), and confidence in the face of fear (1 Sam. 30).
He learned that waiting was God’s seminary to train him for ministering to the Lord’s people.
4. Leads us to live and serve to the glory of God.
Waiting reminds us that life and ministry are never about personal glory. One of the unfortunate results of impatient ministry may be short tenures of service. If we’re in charge, we expect things to center on our desires and pleasure. When that doesn’t work out, we bolt. But waiting reorients our thinking, changing our aim to the glory of God.
Impatience, bucking God’s timing, ruthlessly grabbing the reins over life and ministry only stifles maturity and usefulness with the Lord. Waiting changes focus from self to God’s glory. Waiting sustains us long in spiritual walk and ministry to the glory of God.
Watch His promises unfold
Admittedly, waiting may be one of the most difficult trials we face. Yet, “they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (Isa. 40:31).
Wait for the Lord. In doing so, let His promises unfold.
— Phil A. Newton (Ph.D., SEBTS) is a retired pastor, an author, and a visiting professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He serves as director of pastoral care and mentoring for The Pillar Network. He and his wife, Karen, have five children and seven grandchildren.