Tag Archives: waiting

Waiting Without Withering | Bible Gleanings | September 27-28, 2025

September 26, 2025 Brandon G. B. Leave a comment

True love waits, but it might nearly kill you. In 2016, a man named Alexander Cirk determined to see his online girlfriend five-thousand miles away in China. He booked a flight and sent his sweetheart photos of his ticket and dreamed of embracing her. But when he arrived, he embraced no one—his darling was nowhere to be found.

Assuming she was running late, Cirk waited for her in the airport. And he waited for ten days until, according to NBC News, “authorities reportedly took a frail-looking Cirk to a local hospital for treatment.” When his girlfriend was eventually tracked down, she thought he was joking about the trip! Two lessons arise from this: (1) be careful with online dating—you might end up in the hospital and in the hole, and (2) waiting is incredibly difficult. And the latter lesson is one that the Lord teaches us throughout His word.

We are commanded in Psalm 27:14, “Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!” We must wait with patience—for answers to prayer (Ps. 40:1), for God’s guidance (Prov. 3:5-6), for deliverance from tribulations (Ps. 37:7), for the provision of our needs (Ps. 33:20), for justice to be done (Rom. 12:19), and for the fulfillment of His plan and promises (Ps. 138:8). And waiting is particularly challenging because we are conditioned against it. We can microwave our supper, send a text or e-mail instantaneously, and receive packages from Amazon in two days. But there is no fast-forward button on God’s plan (Eccl. 3:11).

But although waiting is hard, it is also holy. Waiting provides an opportunity to stretch out our faith across time. Waiting expresses trust in God’s goodness and wisdom, as waiting essentially says, “God knows better than I do. My life and times are in His hands” (cf. Ps. 31:15). And thankfully, we do not have to wither while waiting, for God promises to strengthen us: “But 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).

Jacob of old waited fourteen years for Rachel, but it “seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her” (Gen. 29:20). And when we believe that God and His good plan are worth waiting for, how long we must wait will matter very little. As the Puritan George Swinnock wisely stated, “To lengthen my patience is the best way to shorten my troubles.” That is, the more we resolve to wait and trust in the Lord’s perfect timing, the less we will think about how long our suffering must last. Waiting is worthwhile, so let us take our eyes off of our clocks and calendars and fix them upon our Creator whose timing is always perfectly precise.

Brandon is the pastor of Bandana Baptist Church in Bandana, Kentucky, where he lives with his wife, Dakota, and their three dogs, Susie, Aries, and Dot. Brandon and Dakota are also foster parents through Sunrise Children’s Services of Kentucky. Brandon is also a published author and a religious columnist for the Advance Yeoman newspaper in Ballard County, Kentucky. He is also a devotional contributor for Kentucky Today, a news publication of the Kentucky Baptist Convention. His columns are also featured in the Times-Argus newspaper of Central City, Kentucky, West Kentucky News of western Kentucky, and the online blog, Reforming the Heart.

Bible Gleanings, devotions

Seeing the Unseen Work | Bible Gleanings | September 13-14, 2025

September 12, 2025 Brandon G. B. Leave a comment

I had witnessed a miracle: an apartment building had magically sprung up overnight. I was perplexed because I had driven through the area many times before, and never noticed any work being done—no work trucks, no construction crew, and no building materials. If someone living there had said a fourplex apartment was being built, I would have thought they were joking or lying. How, then, did an apartment structure appear out of nowhere? It didn’t—my view of the work was obscured by a grassy hill.

The big hill faces the road and the apartment building is nestled behind it—only the top floors and roof are visible. The hill hindered me from seeing months of hard labor: the laying of the foundation, the beams being raised, and the walls being put in place. Just because I couldn’t see work being done doesn’t mean work wasn’t happening—the problem was my perspective. Had I stood on the other side of the hill, I could have seen the work that was hidden from my sight.

Similarly, there is a “hill” obscuring our perception of the unfathomable work that our gracious God is always doing for our good and His glory—a veil between the physical realm we live in and the spiritual realm where God performs His sovereign will. But just because we sometimes do not see His providential work for our soul-betterment and His renown does not mean He is idle. The Lord is the hardest worker in existence—never clocking out or taking a break from doing whatever it takes to fulfill His good plan for His children (Rom. 8:28). He “neither slumbers nor sleeps” (Ps. 121:4), and as Jesus said, “My Father is working until now, and I am working” (John 5:17). Because of this, every believer can say with the psalmist,

“The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me; thy mercy, O LORD, endureth forever; forsake not the works of thine own hands” (Psalm 138:8, KJV).

From our limited perspective, we may think that God is inactive—not working in our efforts to reach the unsaved, not working in our marriage and in our kids’ lives, not working in our church, not working in our personal sanctification, and not working amidst our heartbreaking troubles. But God assures us, as He assured the prophet Habakkuk: “For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told” (Hab. 1:5b). Thus, we are commanded to “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7), trusting His plan and promises even when we cannot see the fulfillment of them with our physical eyes. The unseen God is at work in your life, and one day, when you stand in His presence on the other side of the hill, His perfect plan will be made plain. As Jesus promised, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand” (John 13:7).

Other, Theological Reflections

The Unexpected Blessing of Unanswered Prayer

February 27, 2025 Brandon G. B. Leave a comment

Unanswered prayer is a razor-sharp instrument of sanctification that the Lord uses to slice open our idolatrous, covetous, unbelieving, and impatient hearts.

That has been my experience, anyway.

When the Lord does not grant us what we want or think we need, our sinful inclination is to desire what we are praying for more than we desire the will of God, which may or may not include the things we have prayed for. The things for which we have yearned for and cried for in prayer may even be good, but our idol-worshipping hearts have a way of turning good things into god-things (Rom. 1:25). A good thing can swiftly become a golden calf and we can easily become fixated upon what we want, allowing everything in our lives to revolve around it, thus, inhibiting contentment with the Lord and His will.

Of course, this is contrary to the kind of God-pleasing obedience which Jesus exemplified in the gloomy garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:42). He prayed that the cup of God’s righteous indignation would pass from Him, if it were possible. For a brief moment, He prayed for a plan B. Nevertheless, He submitted to God’s sovereign plan of redemption, content with the Lord’s will, which was to “crush Him” (Isa. 53:10). Jesus desired the will of God more than what He prayed for.

Unanswered prayer can also reveal our unholy disposition to question God’s promises and provision, as if His word has failed because we have failed to receive what we have asked for in prayer. When the Lord denies our request(s), we can slip into unbelief and falsely suppose that God is going to give us a serpent or a stone, or worse, that He will withhold the bread and good gifts which He promises to give His children. Walking by sight instead of by faith, we can easily interpret a “No” from God as His displeasure or a failure to keep His word.

Unanswered prayer can also expose our impatience and unwillingness to wait upon the Lord. Perhaps He will give us what we are praying for, but today is not the day. Tomorrow may not be the day, either. Perhaps His denial or delay is because He has something much better in store. Only the Lord knows. But what is certain is that when we do not immediately receive what we are praying for, we have a tendency to grow frustrated and impatient.

To be certain, unanswered prayer can be painful, but it is often painful in the same way that open heart surgery is painful; the heart has to be lacerated and opened in order to get it working right. And the Lord has a way of using unanswered prayers to expose the evil of our hearts and show us that all we truly need is Him. Because of this, unanswered prayer can often be an unexpected blessing.

Bible Gleanings, devotions

Already, But Not Yet | Bible Gleanings | September 14-15, 2024

September 13, 2024 Brandon G. B. Leave a comment

My former treasurer handed me a check, but advised, “You can’t cash this until Tuesday.” My name was right there on the “pay to the order of” line, so it was as good as mine—no question. But there was a catch: I had to wait. The check was already in my hands, but I couldn’t receive its full benefits until the date written in the top right corner. It was in my possession, but not yet.

Many other things may be in our possession, but not in actuality. A package from Amazon may be your purchased property, but it is not officially yours until it arrives on your doorstep. A foster child you’re in the process of adopting may be as good as yours, but they won’t legally be yours until a judge grants you permanent custody. An engagement ring may signify that your fiancée is effectively your wife, but the union won’t be legally binding until the wedding day. A house or vehicle may be in your name, but you might be paying them off until Jesus returns!

And the same is true for the believer’s heavenly inheritance. As believers, we are Christ’s bought-and-paid-for property right now, but we have yet to arrive at heaven’s doorsteps (1 Cor. 6:20). Even now, we enjoy the rights and privileges of being His adopted children, but Jesus isn’t finished preparing our heavenly home (Eph. 1:5; Rom. 8:23; John 14:1-3). As the church, we are His beloved and blood-bought bride, but the wonderful wedding day is still to come (Eph. 5:25-33; Rev. 19:6-8). While on earth, we are His possession, with His own name written upon us, but Jesus has not yet returned to take what is rightfully His (1 Peter 2:9; Rev. 3:12; John 14:3).

Heaven is already in our possession, but heaven isn’t in possession of us. We have to wait until the date of our death to “cash in” on our heavenly inheritance. Paul said it best in Ephesians 1:13-14, “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”

Thus, as believers, we sing both, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine,” and, “O, what a foretaste of glory divine!” Jesus is ours and we are His, according to Fanny Crosby’s (1820-1915) timeless hymn, Blessed Assurance. However, our experience of Jesus on earth is merely a preview of glory—we still have a lot of waiting to do. On earth, we see God’s blessings, hear His voice in Scripture, and our hearts are full of joy and peace, but simultaneously, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9, KJV).

Sermons

You Are Enlightened (Eph. 1:9-10)

November 9, 2018 Brandon G. B. Leave a comment

The following sermon was delivered at Locust Grove Baptist Church in Murray, Kentucky, on the 23rd day of September 2018, during the morning service:

Brandon is the founder and main contributor to Brandon’s Desk, the blog with free Christian resources from his ministry. He is proud to be the pastor of the family of believers at Locust Grove Baptist Church in Murray, Kentucky. He and his wife Dakota live there with their two dogs, Susie and Aries.

Brandon's Desk