(From Bitter to Better While We Wait)
There’s a tiny spacecraft drifting through darkness right now. You can’t see it with your eyes. No telescope can frame it. Pioneer 10 left Earth when gasoline was 36 cents a gallon, and bell-bottoms were still a thing. It flew past Jupiter, past Pluto, out where sunlight fades into imagination. The cold is brutal. The silence is punishing.
Yet somehow, across those billions of miles, a faint whisper still reaches Earth. A tiny signal pushes through the void saying, “I’m still here.”
If human beings can design a message that keeps traveling through the stars long after the sender has grown old… imagine how unwavering the promises of God are.
Jesus is coming.
That’s never been in doubt.
The real tension lives in this question:
Why does He wait?
Peter answers with a line that feels like it was written for us this week:
“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise… but is longsuffering… not willing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9).
Delay isn’t disinterest.
Delay is compassion with a pulse.
Delay is mercy on a countdown.
God’s waiting is proof that grace is still moving.
Israel knew this story too
Their Red Sea moment should have anchored everything. Walls of water. Dry ground. Freedom behind them, promise ahead of them. They believed nothing could shake that victory.
Except three days later… at Marah… the water was bitter. And so were they.
Their fear screamed louder than their faith.
God pointed to a tree. Moses threw it into the water. Sweetness replaced bitterness.
Grace always seems to come to us in the shape of wood.
The Cross heals what fear sours.
Israel moved on to Sinai where God spoke identity into existence:
“You are Mine… I carry you… I covenant with you.”
But then at Kadesh Barnea, the moment of trust arrived. Twelve spies returned. Ten saw giants. Two saw God. The majority report:
“We can’t.”
Caleb’s report:
“God can.”
The giants weren’t the problem. The unbelief was.
A whole generation wandered with truth in their heads… but distrust in their hearts.
That’s a terrifying religion: • We know God
• We know doctrine
• We know mission
But we believe we must save ourselves
Our story has echoes
Our pioneers believed Jesus was coming soon. They weren’t wrong about His heart… just early on His timing. The disappointment hurt. But the delay shaped a movement.
We discovered: • Jesus intercedes for us
• Scripture opens from sanctuary to salvation
• Health reform was grace for the body
• Education was grace for the mind
• Mission was grace for the world
Light kept growing.
Love kept calling.
Grace kept waiting.
Yet the most dangerous drift is not into error… but into cold correctness.
We can rehearse truth while resisting trust. We can guard beliefs while losing the Beloved.
If we win arguments but lose adoration, we have settled for wandering with full notebooks.
What if God is waiting for His people?
Peter says the waiting has everything to do with repentance. That’s not the world’s repentance. That’s not Hollywood’s repentance. That’s not Washington’s repentance.
That’s our repentance.
Joel 2 helps us picture it: • Gather the people
• Fast and pray
• Make things right with one another
• Seek the Spirit together
• Let the priests weep between porch and altar
The latter rain won’t fall on solo saints. It falls on a unified church.
The end-time dividing line isn’t liberal vs. conservative.
It’s self-dependent vs. Jesus-dependent.
The Spirit always fills the surrendered first.
When God seems slow
You’ve waited before. I don’t need to know your whole story to know that waiting is a language every human speaks.
Waiting rooms.
Phone calls that don’t come.
Doors that won’t open.
Prayers that echo in silence.
Maybe you prayed for healing… and the doctor said, “Not yet.”
Maybe you begged God to restore your family… and silence met your tears.
Maybe you asked for purpose… and only heard the sound of your own doubts.
Waiting feels like punishment until grace shows you it’s protection.
Sometimes God delays the blessing because the blessing would crush us if given too soon. Sometimes He delays the answer because the relationship matters more than the resolution.
God doesn’t just want to bring you to heaven.
He wants heaven to be formed in you.
Waiting is where heaven gets its work done.
When Jesus waited for me
There came a season in my life where everything that looked stable… wasn’t.
I was in a position that made sense on paper. Leadership. Responsibility. Impact. A role I believed God had guided me into. And then the ground shifted. Suddenly, I was out. The same week, my marriage collapsed. The headline over my life changed from confident to confused. From productive to displaced.
When all your titles fall away, your heart asks a hard question:
“Who am I now?”
I was told I didn’t have the right relationships with the right people.
Then those same people hired me the very next day.
Life was a swirl of uncertainty and irony.
Ministry on Monday. Question marks on Tuesday.
And through all that, one steady voice refused to leave:
“I am not done with you.”
Jesus waited.
Not to punish.
Not to shame.
To heal.
When you lose what you leaned on, you discover what never left.
In the silence, Jesus was forming a deeper confidence. Not a role-based identity. A relationship-based one.
He wasn’t delayed.
He was determined.
Determined to keep me.
Determined to rebuild me.
Determined that I would know the difference between serving God… and knowing God.
The turn in the journey
Maybe you’re here today feeling like God has placed your story on hold. Like you’ve been asked to sit in the hallway while everyone else moves ahead. Like you’re the one drifting while others thrive.
Please hear this:
If God has you waiting…
He is not stalling you.
He is shaping you.
The waiting room is where fear gives way to faith, and faith grows muscles you never needed in easier times.
Transition to Jordan
Israel returned to the Jordan 40 years later after all that wandering. This time, they knew something crucial:
It’s not about our strength crossing the river. It’s about God’s presence parting the waters.
Joshua stood looking at a river in flood stage. Cold, relentless water racing by. On the other side lay the promise. Home. Inheritance. Future.
Yet the command from God sounded almost unreasonable:
“Step in first.
Then I will part it.”
Faith would have been easier if the water moved aside before the first step. We like miracles scheduled ahead of obedience. God likes obedience that welcomes the miracle.
Priests carried the Ark and walked toward the river.
One step. Two steps.
And suddenly the current froze in place like God pressed pause on nature.
Stones were lifted from the riverbed as a memorial. Not to glorify the Jordan. Not to celebrate human courage.
To remember the God who makes a way where there isn’t one.
Israel crossed because they finally believed the One leading them.
We are standing at that same river
Maybe not a river with water.
But a river of uncertainty.
A river of impossible.
A river of “what if I fail again?”
The church is at the edge of something God-sized. The Spirit is stirring. People are praying. The world is groaning for hope. And Jesus stands ready to finish what He started.
The question is not “Can God?”
The question is “Will we step?”
What stepping looks like today
Stepping means asking forgiveness before you feel like it.
It means answering the Spirit’s nudge even when comfort begs you to stay seated.
It means serving that neighbor who has never thanked you.
It means confessing a bitterness you’ve carried too long.
It means trusting Jesus with the wound you can’t talk about.
It means returning to first love.
Even the disciples had to learn this. Think of them between the cross and Pentecost. Jesus had risen. Hope was alive again. But they still waited. They still prayed. They still needed a room to heal together.
Ten days of surrender, humility, and unity…
before fire fell.
He delays because love takes time.
He isn’t waiting to punish the world.
He’s waiting to revive His church.
He’s waiting to restore homes.
He’s waiting to bring prodigals home.
He’s waiting to heal the tired and strengthen the weary.
He’s waiting for us to step into the river.
Because the best truly is yet to come
Our story doesn’t peak in the past.
We aren’t a museum of what God did.
We are a movement of what God is doing.
Imagine that day. Not metaphor. Not symbol.
A day more real than the pew beneath you.
The sky peels open like cloth.
Gravestones break like cheap pottery.
Angels—bright as sunrise on the ocean—rush the horizon.
Your name spoken by the King Himself.
Everything waiting for redemption… redeemed.
No more funerals.
No more “I’m sorry” conversations.
No waiting.
No distance.
No fear.
Just presence. Joy. Home.
We’ll stand not at Jordan… but on a sea of glass.
Not trembling… but singing.
Not wondering… but finally seeing.
And I believe someone will look at you with gratitude you never expected and say:
“Thank you for waiting.
Thank you for trusting.
Thank you for stepping in the river.”
And all we’ll be able to answer is:
“The Lord did it.
He carried me.
The best was truly yet to come.”
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Appeal
What do you need Jesus to carry today?
Where is your river?
Where is your bitterness that needs the tree of grace?
Where is the fear louder than the promise?
If your heart is whispering, “I’m tired of wandering”…
Jesus is whispering, “I’m right here.”
If you feel like your story was paused…
Jesus knows exactly when to press play.
If you feel unworthy to return…
Jesus is waiting at the door.
He delays because you still matter.
He delays because someone you love still matters.
He delays because mercy isn’t finished yet.
And today… He invites you to step.
Not alone.
Together.
As His people.
As His family.
As His bride.
Take His hand.
Trust His heart.
Walk with Him toward the promise.
Because the best…
is yet to come.
