I'm Not Where I Want to Be (A Biblical Theology of Waiting)
We’ve all felt it: that sinking awareness that life isn’t what we hoped it would be. A career that’s stalled. A relationship that feels stuck. A diagnosis, a regret, a disappointment that leaves us whispering: I’m not where I want to be.
A few years back, I felt that in the most frustrating way. I was flying home from a preaching trip in South Korea. My wife Jennie was pregnant—third trimester—and I was desperate to get back to her before the baby came. But when I landed in Los Angeles, the entire immigration computer system for the United States went down. No passports were getting cleared. Six hours we sat on that plane, hot, hungry, frustrated. I watched my connection to Seattle, then Kalispell, disappear. And with it, the hope of being home for the weekend. My whole body screamed: I don’t want to be here. I’m supposed to be there.
And that’s life, isn’t it? You’re standing in one place, but your heart is somewhere else. Your present reality feels an ocean away from where you thought you’d be by now.
The Bible speaks to that tension. Psalm 37 is King David’s A-to-Z on waiting—22 stanzas, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It’s a lifetime of wisdom distilled. And it’s the very passage many theologians believe Jesus was meditating on when He gave the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount.
(If you haven’t read it, or even if you have, you should pause here for a minute to go read it, and then come back!)
So what do we do in these seasons? Here are three truths to anchor us when we’re not where we want to be:
Waiting Isn’t Wasting—It’s Becoming
David was anointed king as a teenager while tending sheep. Imagine the prophet pouring oil over your head, declaring, You’re the king of Israel. And then? Back to the sheep pen. Back to obscurity. He wouldn’t sit on the throne of all Israel for another 22 years. Over two decades of waiting!
But those in-between years weren’t wasted. They were forming him. He learned to fight lions and bears before he fought Goliath. He played music for a king who wanted him dead. He learned how to serve before he ever led.
Waiting isn’t passive. David didn’t just sit around waiting for a crown on a pillow. He kept doing good. He kept sowing seeds. He couldn’t do the good he would do one day, so he did the good he could do right then.
And that’s true for us. This isn’t a season to kill time. It’s a season to sow seeds that your future self will thank you for. Get healthy. Go to counseling. Work on your finances. Join a small group. Serve in your community. Don’t underestimate what God can do with faithfulness in the small things.
Waiting is Feeding, Not Fretting
We live in an Amazon Prime world, but God works on seed time and harvest. Seeds always start small. They grow slow. Then one day—suddenly—they sprout.
But that waiting space between planting and harvest? That’s where we’re most tempted to mess it up. We rush. We despise the small beginnings. We compare our timeline to others. David warns us three times in Psalm 37: Don’t fret. Fretting only causes harm.
I think of the time my daughter, Daisy, was five. I patched a dead spot in our lawn with grass seed, and she ran outside after I watered it, shouting, Did it grow yet? Did it grow yet? She stared at the dirt, waiting for instant green. When it didn’t happen, she pouted. And honestly? That’s us. We give two decades to sin and then expect 15 minutes with Jesus to change everything.
Growth takes time. Healing takes time. God’s work takes time. Your job isn’t to make it happen faster—it’s to keep feeding the seed. Keep showing up. Keep watering. Keep trusting that the God who began a good work in you will complete it.
Waiting is About Where You Are, Not Where You Wish You Were
David had a palace in his future. But God’s presence wasn’t reserved for someday—it was with him in the pasture, in the cave, in the wilderness. Paul echoed that truth in Philippians 4: I have learned to be content in all things.
This is the secret: God isn’t just waiting for you in your idealized future. He’s with you where you wish you weren’t. He’s present in the job you don’t love, in the marriage that feels harder than you imagined, in the grief you never signed up for. He’s there.
Which means your waiting isn’t wasted, your prayers aren’t unheard, your tears aren’t unseen. Waiting isn’t about longing for a someday—it’s about trusting the One who is already here today.
The Promise
Isaiah 60 reminds us: In its time, I will do it quickly, says the Lord. Ecclesiastes 3 echoes: He makes everything beautiful in its time. Galatians 6 promises: If we do not grow weary in doing good, we will reap a harvest in due season.
So don’t lose heart. Waiting isn’t wasted time—it’s sacred space. God is at work in the soil of your today, preparing you for the fruit of tomorrow.
And one day, when the harvest comes, you’ll look back on this season and say, God was with me there too.
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