The LORD's waiting room: God's timing

There are seasons where you have prayed, fasted, sought God's face, and the answer is delayed. Others around you have received, have seen, have sung their miracle. You, you are still waiting. In this message preached at Lieu de Miracles Church on Sunday, April 26, 2026, Brother Anthony AMEMOR dares to say something that may unsettle you: "Welcome to the LORD's waiting room." It is not a punishment. It is a passage God brings his children through for a specific reason. Starting from Psalm 27:14, "Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!", he invites you to understand why God delays, how to hold on through it, and what posture to take in this waiting room where you would rather not stay.

Outline of the message

1. What the LORD's waiting room really is
2. Why God has us go through it: timing before the promise
3. Those who went through it before you: Simeon, Abraham, Job, David
4. The posture to hold: hope, be strong, take courage

1. What the LORD's waiting room really is

Brother Anthony tells of a recent experience: he went to a hospital's emergency room. There, in the waiting room, he noticed many things that speak to our Christian walk. Some patients arrived, wrote down their name, and within a few minutes the doctor came for them. Others had been there for hours. Some who had been given an 11 a.m. appointment were still waiting at 3 p.m. There were agitated people, angry people, people saying: "But doctor, what is going on in this hospital? I came since this morning, and the doctor still isn't here." It gets on your nerves. Sometimes it bothers you. Sometimes it wounds you.

That is exactly what happens in the Christian life. The LORD's waiting room, the preacher says, "is when we have received promises and we are waiting for an answer." It is the time that separates the moment you received the promise from the moment of its fulfillment. You prayed. You fasted. You walked out of your room, happy, sure that God would answer you. But what you see brings you right back inside. And sometimes (a phrase Brother Anthony repeats), "the more you pray, the worse the situation gets."

No matter who you are, if you walk with God, he will bring you through this waiting room. It is not because you have not prayed enough. It is not because God does not want to answer. It is not because your faith is too small. As he puts it forcefully: "It is not that God cannot give it to you in a minute, in two minutes, in five minutes, in a day, in two days, in a month. God is able to give it to you." The question is not God's ability. It lies elsewhere.

2. Why God has us go through it: timing before the promise

The first thing the preacher noticed is that for God, timing matters more than the promise. God can give you what you are asking for right now. But he chooses his hour, because "God has made everything beautiful in its time" (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

"God has his own time, and you have yours." When you pray, you look at your own timeline. You want the answer for tomorrow, for next week, for this month. But God looks at his own timing, according to his plan, according to what he is doing, according to what he wants to do with you. He also looks at your timing. But he makes everything beautiful in his time, not in yours.

That is why Christ himself did not come into the world the day after the promise made to Eve in the garden of Eden. The prophet Micah had announced Bethlehem: "But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days" (Micah 5:2). Between the promise and its fulfillment, there were centuries. There was an immense waiting room. But when the time came, God sent his Son, not a day too soon, not a day too late.

In Genesis 15:16, when God speaks to Abraham, he explains why Abraham's descendants will not take possession of the land right away: "And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." God was not only waiting on Abraham to act. He was also waiting for the right moment for another people. God's timing takes into account so many things your eyes cannot take in. When you are in the waiting room, it is not that God has forgotten you. It is that he is working on other things at the same time as your case.

There is a second reason, just as important: God uses this waiting room to work in you what you could not become without it. James writes: "for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing" (James 1:3-4). The waiting room is not empty. It is a workshop. There God shapes patience, puts your impatience to death, forms the character that will be able to carry the promise once it arrives. Many blessings are not given because the one who would carry them is not yet ready.

3. Those who went through it before you

You are not the first to know this waiting room. The Bible is full of it, and Brother Anthony read at the start of the service a passage that speaks exactly to this: Luke 2:22-35. "Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ." Simeon waited an entire lifetime. He grew old in this waiting room. And the day Joseph and Mary bring the infant Jesus into the temple, Simeon takes him in his arms and blesses God: "Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation."

There is Abraham, to whom God promised a son. "We see Abraham, who waited for 25 years," Brother Anthony says. Twenty five years. What kept God from answering Abraham sooner? Nothing. But God was waiting for the right moment, and Abraham, in that waiting, became what Paul describes in Romans 4:20: "No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God."

There is Job, crushed by suffering, who declares in Job 14:14: "All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come." Waiting all the days of distress. Not only the days when we have strength. The days when we no longer have any either.

There is David, pursued, betrayed, on the run, who writes Psalm 27 and gives himself this charge: "Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!" (Psalm 27:14). He says it once. He repeats it. "Take courage, and I say it again, wait for the LORD." It is as if David knew that the first word would not be enough, as if in the waiting room you had to speak to yourself again, strengthen yourself again, encourage yourself again.

And there is the promise of Isaiah: "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" (Isaiah 40:31). Waiting for the LORD, in the Bible, is never staying passive. It is renewing your strength in his presence, every morning, to hold out one more day.

4. The posture to hold: hope, be strong, take courage

What attitude should you have in this waiting room? Brother Anthony draws it directly from Psalm 27:14: three verbs, three postures.

Wait for the LORD. Not waiting for the situation to change. Waiting for him. Your hope does not rest on the outcome you are waiting for, but on the one who made the promise. If you are waiting for the outcome, you will collapse every time it is delayed. If you are waiting for God himself, you will hold on, because he does not change.

Be strong. That is an active choice. In the waiting room, you do not hold on by accident. You hold on because you feed on the Word, because you keep returning to God's presence, because you refuse to let your thoughts drift into complaining. The Bible says in Exodus 14:14: "The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent." There is a silence to keep while God himself fights. That silence is not resignation. It is trust.

Let your heart take courage. The heart that takes courage is the heart that, like Abraham's in Romans 4, no longer doubts. It is not a heart that no longer feels anything. It is a heart that has chosen God over its circumstances. A heart that has decided (even when everything says otherwise) that "God has made everything beautiful in its time."

And there is a promise to hold you in this posture: "if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9). Confess your trust out loud. Speak to your waiting room. Tell your heart what it must believe when your eyes have not yet seen.

Key takeaways

• The LORD's waiting room is the time between the moment you received a promise and its fulfillment. Every child of God goes through it.
• For God, timing matters more than the promise. He makes everything beautiful in his time, not in yours.
• Delay is not refusal. Often God is waiting for another piece to fall into place, just as he waited for the fourth generation for Abraham.
• In the waiting room, God works in you the patience, the character, and the faith that will be able to carry the promise once it arrives.
• You are not alone: Simeon, Abraham, Job, David, and many others went through it before you, and God met them at the right moment.
• Three postures hold you through the wait: hope in the LORD, be strong, let your heart take courage.

Personal application

• What waiting room are you in today? What promise are you still waiting to see fulfilled?
• Are you waiting for an outcome, or are you waiting for God himself? What is your hope really resting on?
• Are you blaming God for his silence, like the patients getting angry at the doctor? Can you set that anger down today?
• What might God be working in you through this wait, patience, character, faith, a surrender?
• What verses will you confess out loud this week to strengthen your heart: Psalm 27:14? Isaiah 40:31? Exodus 14:14?

Verses cited

• Psalm 27:14, "Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage!"
• Luke 2:22-35, Simeon takes into his arms the Christ he had been waiting for
• Ecclesiastes 3:11, God has made everything beautiful in its time
• Micah 5:2, the Messiah announced at Bethlehem centuries in advance
• Genesis 15:16, "in the fourth generation they shall come back here"
• James 1:3-4, the testing of faith produces steadfastness
• Job 14:14, "All the days of my service I would wait"
• Isaiah 40:31, those who wait for the LORD renew their strength
• Exodus 14:14, "The LORD will fight for you; you have only to be silent"
• Romans 4:20, Abraham grew strong in his faith
• Romans 10:9, confess with your mouth and believe in your heart

FAQ

How do I know if my waiting comes from God or from a blockage caused by my own sin?

The first question to ask in a season of waiting is one of conscience before God. Is there an unconfessed sin, a known disobedience, a reconciliation you keep putting off? If so, deal with that first. If you can say, like David in Psalm 26, that you are walking in integrity, then the waiting is not a judgment: it is a time of formation. God never toys with his children, he shapes them.

Can I still pray for things to move faster?

Yes, and the Bible invites you to. Jesus says to pray without giving up (Luke 18). But praying for things to move faster is not the same as dictating a schedule to God. Brother Anthony puts it this way: "God looks at his own timing, according to his plan." Pray with persistence, but leave the timing to God. That is the meaning of Psalm 27:14: hope in him, not in a date.

What do I do when brothers or sisters have already received their miracle and I have not?

This may be the heaviest suffering in the waiting room: watching others walk out before you. Brother Anthony mentions it: "There are some who have received the results. There are others who are still waiting." Resist comparison. God is writing your story, not a copy of someone else's. Rejoice with those who rejoice (Romans 12:15), that shared joy strengthens your own heart. And remember that Simeon waited when others, younger than him, would never see the Messiah with their own eyes; what he received at the end of the wait was worth an entire lifetime.