Waiting in line for your cup of coffee.

Waiting for your online shopping order to arrive.

Waiting for your ride to pull up at your door.

Our daily lives are punctuated with such periods of waiting, and we’re constantly finding ways to cut it down—from self-service kiosks, one-click checkouts, advance bookings… the list goes on.

But what about the way bigger areas of life where everything we’ve tried in our human strength has failed and we can’t help but just wait?

Perhaps you’ve tried so many treatments for that long-term condition, but year after year, the doctor’s report is still the same. Or you’ve waited so long for your estranged husband/wife’s heart to turn back to you, but nothing has changed.

Maybe from “Are we there yet, God?” you’ve started asking: “Will we ever get there, Lord?”

These prolonged seasons of waiting can be incredibly confusing and painful. If you’re in one now, I know it can be incredibly difficult and I don’t want to make light of it.

But even in the times when God feels silent and far away, could I offer you a beacon of hope?

Meet Abraham and Sarah, a couple known for their whopping 25-year wait for baby Isaac to arrive.

Yet it was said of Abraham: “(For Abraham, human reason for) hope being gone, hoped in faith that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been promised, So (numberless) shall your descendants be.” (Romans 4:18 AMPC)

How could Abraham hope against all hope that he would be the father of many nations, when he hadn’t even seen his first child?

I believe it was founded upon the relationship Abraham had with God.

The Bible calls him God’s friend (2 Chronicles 20:7) and records the candid conversations they had too. One night, God even brought Abraham out of his tent to look at the stars, told him to try counting them and said his descendants would be that numerous as well.

And indeed, all of us who believe in Jesus are now considered Abraham’s descendants (Galatians 3:29 NASB). That’s mind-blowing!

If you’re in a place of prolonged waiting and hopelessness today, could we encourage you to let the Lord love on you afresh? Will you pour out your emotions – be it anger, anguish or bitterness – and let Him replace them with His perfect love?

And if you can’t even see any good coming out of your situation, would you ask Him to give you a new vision of it, just like He did for Abraham?

“Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts…” (Romans 5:5 NASB)

The word for “hope” in the verse’s original Greek is elpis, which means a confident expectation of good.

How do we have that? By being with the Lord and letting your heart be filled again and again with His love.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

You might be thinking: “But I know of someone who trusted in God but didn’t get her miracle.”

I know… life doesn’t always make sense. I’ll be honest: This isn’t a fail-safe formula to get what you’ve been waiting for. But truth is, do we have a better alternative?

As Martin Luther King Jr. once said: “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

I choose to wait with a hope that’s inspired by growing closer to the Lord every day and knowing who He is to me (not blind hope!) than to wait in despondence and lose all hope – though that can be painfully real at times.

For even when nothing seems to be happening outside, the Lord says that when we wait on Him, He is strengthening our hearts within (Psalm 27:13-14).

In fact, the word “wait” in the original Hebrew of this verse is the beautiful word qavah, which means to bind fast together, like ropes intertwined tightly together.

Would you believe that your times of waiting are those where the Lord draws closest to you? And you have His word that He will work all things in your life – including this waiting time and whatever that comes out of it – together for good (Romans 8:28).

Friend, your seasons spent waiting aren’t for naught. Right where you’re at, God meets you with His truth, His love and His hope. And He makes the wait worthwhile.

This article was first published on Decibel.one and is republished with permission.