Do you enjoy waiting? Most of us, if we’re prepared to be honest, would answer with an emphatic “No!” We need only to sit and wait for somebody to reverse out of a parking space to be reminded of how impatient we really are. Usually, we desire that our needs be met according to our timetable, and modern life teaches us that this is a fair demand. And yet this lack of patience poses a major problem for the Christian—because if we find it difficult to wait, we’re going to find it very difficult to walk by faith.

In the Bible, we often see faith demonstrated as men and women wait on the promises of God. (See, for instance, Romans 4.) Indeed, God’s “precious and very great promises” (2 Peter 1:4) are seldom given with any kind of time guarantee. This makes all the difference in the world. Most of us can muster up the ability to wait if we know that we only have to wait until next Friday, or until five o’clock, or whenever. But that is not waiting in faith. Rather, Scripture exhorts us to wait not on a specific time but on the faithfulness of the one who promises—namely, God Himself.

If we are in need of strength—strength to endure illness, to resist temptation, to show kindness to a challenging coworker—and we turn to the Scriptures for encouragement, we discover that “they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31). Likewise, at the birth of the church, the word of Christ to the disciples was that they should wait in Jerusalem “for the promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4). In the same way, we are called to wait “for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). The Bible tells us to wait, to watch, to pray, to look, and to be ready, not with a knowledge of the timeframe but with the knowledge that God is faithful.

You likely know what it is to have your character tested in faith’s waiting room. Remember that genuine faith involves waiting, and it requires that we wait not on external circumstances but on our God, who sees His people and who “acts for those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4). Let that build patience within you, both for the waiting times in this life and as you wait for the Lord to return and bring you into the glory of your eternal life.