Learning to Slow Down and Wait Well Requires Faith and Surrender

We so often live life full speed ahead, but God is not in a hurry. What would it look like to slow down the pace? How can slowing down help us wait well?

Apr 04, 2024

green plant with water droplets — Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Hey friends!

This past weekend, I stayed with family in NJ as we celebrated Easter together. When I began writing this post on Saturday, I found myself looking out the bedroom window at a small forest which hugs the back property line of my cousin’s home in Bedminster. Early in the morning, I could feel the cool air creeping in through the window, hear the birds chirping, and witness the sun just beginning to break through the trees.

Their home is nestled on an expansive property of an old horse farm and the fence which runs along the backyard is dotted with small signs of spring — the trees are beginning to bud slightly, bits of green seem to fill in the once empty spaces between branches, and blossoms are peeking open just slightly checking if it's time. There is still a long way to go before the wood becomes lush and bursts with the vibrancy and life of summer, but the signs are all around me that change is coming.

This in between reminds me of how hard it is to wait. It’s no coincidence that I began writing this on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter Sunday, which in the Christian faith is the very epitome of waiting.

So, let’s dig in together…

Much of the journey toward calling requires waiting.

Let me begin by saying, waiting is the worst and I am not particularly gifted in the realm of patience. More often than not, I don’t wait well. I tend to want to move quickly. I’m eager to do more and fire through my checklists. And, frequently I’m tempted to move through life relying on my own self-sufficiency.

However, this past year, in an effort to move toward emotional, spiritual, and physical health, I really focused on slowing down. Each year in prayer, I ask God for my word for the year and my word last year was rest. I wasn’t stoked on it at first in all honesty. I didn’t really want to learn how to rest because resting felt like a waste of time. Yet, God was inviting me into a season of rest, so I figured it was worth a shot.

And, let’s just say, I failed a lot.

I fought rest and waiting more than I embraced it, but I gave it my all. I studied Sabbath. I read books on desert spirituality, focusing on the spiritual practices of silence and solitude. I read some incredible books on rest. And, in the end, it has completely changed me.

There were things that came at me this past year that I couldn’t have moved through without learning how to operate from a place of rest – without learning how to wait well. As I reflect on it now, it was all so timely.

I will say that I’ve also been quite surprised by how much I enjoyed a slower pace. I think at first I thought God was inviting me in to learn the art of slowing down because I had been going full steam ahead into burnout for nearly a decade. But, the more I surrendered, I realized that living a hurried life is not just draining and unhealthy, it is actually un-Godly.

God is not a hurried God.

He is never in a rush.

He can do something in an instant if he wants, but more often than not, he takes the scenic route. He stops and smells the flowers. He basks in the glow of the sun. He looks deeply into his creation with his full attention. His pace is beautiful but it is also (often) painstakingly slow.

Yet, I’m learning that walking in pace with him brings more fullness than I could ever cultivate on my own. Although I have a long way to go, I have realized this past year that it is possible to create rhythms in life that help me slow down, which in turn has really helped me learn how to wait well. And, even more miraculously, when we slow down our own agenda and learn to wait well, we can begin to see how the waiting is actually more transformational and revelatory than the fulfillment on the other side.

That being said, I’m not minimizing the difficulty of waiting because I know deeply how hard it is to have faith in the process.

I’m currently waiting on many things and all of them feel larger than life.

I’m waiting for my visa approval to move back to a city where I feel deeply called to — a move which has required three years of waiting.

I’m waiting for my next job to surface. I left my teaching jobs in the summer of 2023 and I thought I would have a clearer road map by now, but God seems to be giving me breadcrumbs instead of the entire picture.

I’m waiting for the non-profit idea I’ve been co-creating with God to take shape.

I’m waiting to find the right agent and publisher for the books I’ve been writing.

I’m waiting for the family I long to build.

I’m waiting for the home I’ve been praying for — Dan and I have lived in eleven different places in this past year.

I’m waiting for Dan and God’s plans for him to come into fulfillment.

I’m waiting.

And let me be clear, this doesn’t mean I’m not doing – I am doing lots of things while I wait. I am also consistently praying and surrendering. But, I can only do so much and the rest I have to give over to God.

Sometimes I wait well. Other times, I hoist all of my worries, insecurities, doubts, and fears on my back and try to carry them. I don’t make it very far most of the time before I realize it’s time to surrender again. It’s time to let go and give it back.

2023 was a year of stepping out in faith into the unknown, trusting that God was going to lead and guide me into my next season. I thought by now I would have clarity. Yet, I still don’t have the full picture of what’s next.

You see, I have a lot of puzzle pieces scattered on the table for the most beautiful puzzle, but I’ve only got a few clusters that match up. I’m not sure how it all fits together just yet. This is what the pursuit of calling often looks like.

I have had to surrender my plans, my ideas of success, and my own impatience and trust that God will lead me day by day into the plans he has for me. Some days things seem to come together, a few more pieces of the puzzle fit, and other days I am waiting. Some days, I build and things start to take shape, and the next day or week or month, I find myself waiting again.

Lately, it seems I only have enough clarity for one day. I want to set up my five year plan; I want to launch my ministry; I want to jump ahead and move forward and plow the ground before it's ready. There is part of me that always wants to move more quickly. But, God is in no rush. If I surrender to his will and his plan, he won’t let me miss the promise. He will lead and guide me and I can trust him.

Some days joy comes easily. Other days, I have to choose it.

But, always, I have to trust him. I have to pray without ceasing. I have to still myself and from a restful place, listen for his voice in the wilderness.

What would it look like to live so surrendered that we don’t take a single step without God saying move?

For a moment I want to talk to you about one of my favorite women in history.

María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, affectionately known as Mama Antula, was an 18th century laywoman living in Argentina. In 1767, Charles III of Spain expelled the Jesuits from the Americas. Yet, Mama Antula firmly believed that the Ignacian spiritual exercises must keep going because they were life changing; She saw so many come to Christ and experience God’s love through them; She saw lives restored, healed, and changed.

Despite the expulsion of the Jesuits, Mama Antula sensed God deeply calling her to continue to lead spiritual retreats and spread the good news of Jesus. So, she gathered up a group of women who also felt this call and together they traveled by foot through the mountains, deserts, rivers, and wilderness running clandestine spiritual retreats so people could encounter God and learn to hear his voice.

Their obedience and faith astounds me. And, the result of it? God provided for their every need along the way. He instructed them, protected them, provided for them, and led them throughout their work. These retreats were so impactful, it is said that more than 100,000 people came to know Jesus through them and countless more learned to hear God’s voice intimately.

In a letter she wrote to Jesuit leaders in Spain explaining her mission, Mama Antula writes, “I cannot bring myself to do anything until I see clearly that it is the will of God. And to tell you everything in confidence, I do not take a step without the Lord commanding me and leading me sensibly, as if by his hand”.2

I imagine even for Mama Antula there was quite a bit of waiting. I imagine there were days when she wanted to move forward but God asked her to pause. And yet, she kept her heart and her will aligned to his. To the world, it must have looked crazy.

And yet, what a beautiful way to live: “I do not take a step without the Lord commanding me and leading me by his hand.” This is the kind of surrender to calling I want to live out. This is what it looks like to wait well and listen to God’s voice.

This type of living requires a deep intimacy with the Creator of the Universe, and the best way to develop that closeness is through prayer. Prayer is the pathway to the heart of the Father.

We have to slow down to hear his voice. We have to learn how to wait well.

It is so easy to move through this life quickly and with such a hurried pace that we actually miss God’s glory passing by. Living in alignment with your calling means living in alignment with your Creator. He is never in a rush and he is always on time.

Now, I can’t write a post coming out of Easter weekend without a brief reflection on Jesus and waiting.

In the Christian faith, Holy Saturday is a devastating day of waiting. Waiting for the hope of Christ’s resurrection, waiting for God to show up in the most powerful way, waiting for death to actually be defeated, waiting for the greatest promise in all of history to be fulfilled — waiting in all of our frail humanity.

I imagine the somber stillness and deep quiet in the spaces Jesus’s followers occupied on Holy Saturday. I imagine the confusion, the disappointment, the longing. I imagine every bit of them wanting desparately to believe but part of them deep down still full of doubt. Is it all true? Have I got this wrong?

It must have been the longest 24 hours of their lives.

Faith is incredibly hard. We want to have big faith for God’s promises. We want to believe and know for certain what he said will come to pass, but the humanity within us so often gets in the way. What I’m continuing to realize is that real faith is not possible without God. We can never muster up enough on our own. We can never really have faith in our own strength because faith is a gift.

Pete Greig and the followers of Jesus at 24/7 Prayer explain this complexity of faith in their Holy Saturday instagram story:

When things are going well, it’s much easier to have faith and hope for what’s to come. But, when you are waiting on a big promise to be fulfilled, when your external realities look nothing like the internal truth God promised, when you are waiting and waiting and waiting for the fulfillment of a word that seems to be forever delayed, it is excruciatingly hard.

Let’s just all sit with that for a moment.

It is hard.

Waiting is hard.

Faith is hard.

Believing for what seems increasingly impossible is hard.

There’s a reason why we hear Mark 9:24 repeated so often in the Christian walk: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” Because faith is impossible in our own strength.

And yet...

You are not alone in the waiting.

This past weekend, we sat in the very best of company. We sat alongside the disciples in what I imagine were crowded rooms of deafening silence. Will what he promised come to pass? Will I see God’s goodness in the land of the living? How much longer, Lord?

This past weekend, we joined over 2 billion Christians around the world and we waited together, knowing that God is a promise keeper and knowing that his timing is perfect. We sat around tables on Sunday afternoon eating, drinking, and celebrating the reality that God is never late.

Although we struggle to wait, his patience in the waiting strengthens us. Although we struggle to believe, his faith is perfected in our weakness. Although we lose our way from time-to-time, he never loses sight of us.

His plans and promises will come to fulfillment in your life. Draw close and align your will with his. Still yourself and slow down so you can tune into his voice.

Together we pray, “Lord, increase my faith. Help me in my unbelief. Teach me how to wait well.” Because faith is a gift, and it is the most important gift we can carry with us along the journey of calling.