“Wait for the LORD. Be strong, and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for the LORD.”
Context: The command is repeated at the start and end of the verse, as if once were not enough.
Bible Verses for Waiting on God
Waiting is one of the Bible's most common experiences and one of its least comfortable. The writers complain about it openly.
These passages hold two things together: honest impatience and a decision to keep watching.
Compiled and reviewed by the Verse & Light editorial team · last reviewed 2026-09-20 · Scripture quoted from the World English Bible
The passages
“but those who wait for the LORD will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint.”
Context: Renewed strength attached specifically to waiting rather than to striving.
“The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.”
Context: Quiet waiting described as good — written by someone with every reason to give up.
“For the vision is yet for the appointed time, and it hurries toward the end, and won’t prove false. Though it takes time, wait for it, because it will surely come. It won’t delay.”
Context: A vision for an appointed time, with the instruction to wait even if it seems slow.
“I wait for the LORD. My soul waits. I hope in his word. My soul longs for the Lord more than watchmen long for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.”
Context: Watchmen waiting for morning — the image is of certainty about the outcome, not the timing.
“But if we hope for that which we don’t see, we wait for it with patience.”
Context: Hope for what is unseen is defined as waiting with patience.
Questions to sit with
- What are you waiting for, and how long has it been?
- What is worth doing well while you wait?
- Where have you seen an answer arrive late but real?
A prayer
Original devotional writing by the Verse & Light editorial team — not part of the Bible text
God, waiting is wearing me down. Keep my hope alive and my hands busy with something good. Amen.
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