The Art of Doing Nothing: Why Waiting Is Spiritual Strength
In the ancient Near East, if you wanted to know what a king was thinking, you didn’t just ask him. You waited. And not just for a moment. You waited until the dust settled. You waited until the court scribes finished their notes. You waited until the silence stretched so thin you could hear your own heartbeat echoing off the stone walls.
There was a specific word for this kind of waiting in Hebrew culture: qavah.
It’s the word used in , though the translation often misses the weight of it. We usually translate it as "wait," but qavah is more like binding together. It’s the act of twisting strands of rope until they are tight, strong, and unbreakable. It implies tension. It implies effort. It implies that while you are sitting still, something is actually being pulled taut inside you.
We’ve forgotten how to sit still.
Look at your phone. Really look at it. How many times have you opened it in the last hour without a specific purpose? Just to check. Just to see if there’s a ping, a notification, a tiny dopamine hit that says, "You are still here. The world is still moving. You are still relevant."
We are terrified of the pause.
We treat silence like an error message. We fill every gap in conversation with noise. We scroll through feeds while we wait for the coffee to brew. We listen to podcasts while we drive. We are constantly curating a soundtrack for our lives because the alternative—actual, raw, unedited silence—is too loud.
But here’s the thing about the weeks after Easter. The resurrection isn’t just a event that happened two thousand years ago. It’s a reality we are living in right now. And yet, we still wait.
We live in the "already" of the victory, but the "not yet" of our daily lives.
Christ is risen. The tomb is empty. Death has been swallowed up. But your back still hurts. Your job is still uncertain. Your relationships are still messy. The world is still broken.
So what do we do with that gap? That wide, open, terrifying space between "it is finished" and "it is all made new"?
The Myth of the Straight Line
Most of us think of spiritual growth as a straight line. You start at point A (broken, confused, afraid) and you move to point B (peaceful, confident, holy). We assume that if we just pray enough, read enough Scripture, and serve enough, we will arrive.
But the Bible doesn’t give us a straight line. It gives us a wilderness.
Think about the Israelites. They got out of Egypt. They saw the parting of the sea. They heard the thunder of God’s voice. And then? They spent forty years wandering in the desert.
Why?
Because they couldn’t handle the transition. They required time to unlearn slavery. They required time to trust that God would provide manna every single morning, even when the sky looked clear. They required time to realize that God wasn’t just in the thunder, but in the quiet whisper.
Waiting isn’t a delay. It’s the training ground.
I remember a few years ago, I got sick. Not a life-threatening illness, but something that kept me horizontal for three weeks. I’m not a naturally patient person. I’m a doer. I solve problems. I fix leaks. I answer emails. I move forward.
But when I was sick, I couldn’t do anything. I had to lie there. And at first, it felt like punishment. I thought, "God, why am I stuck here? What am I supposed to be learning? Why isn’t this resolving?"
I was angry at the stillness. I was furious at the lack of progress.
But by the second week, something shifted. I stopped checking my phone every ten minutes. I stopped trying to mentally draft my next email. I just lay there. And in that stillness, I started to hear. Not a voice, exactly. But a sense of presence. A quiet assurance that I didn’t have to do anything to be loved. I just had to be.
It was uncomfortable. It was boring. It was necessary.
That’s qavah. That’s the rope tightening.
Waiting Is Not Passive
We make a mistake when we think waiting is passive. We think it’s sitting on our hands while God does the work. But biblical waiting is active. It’s a discipline. It’s a choice to align your rhythm with God’s, not your own.
In , David doesn’t just say "Wait for the Lord." He says, "Wait for the Lord; be strong, and take heart and wait for the Lord."
Notice the command. Be strong. Take heart.
Waiting requires strength. It requires courage. It’s easy to wait when you’re comfortable. It’s hard to wait when you’re in pain. It’s hard to wait when you don’t see the answer coming.
But here’s the secret: God isn’t hiding. He’s preparing.
Think of a seed in the ground. It’s dark. It’s cold. It’s alone. To the seed, it looks like the end. But inside, roots are breaking through the shell. The shell is cracking. Life is happening. But you can’t see it from the outside.
If you dug up that seed every hour to check on it, you’d kill it. You’d interrupt the process.
We dig up our waiting. We check our faith like we check the oven. "Is it done yet? Is it done yet?"
And when the answer is "no," we get frustrated. We start to doubt. We start to wonder if God forgot us.
But He didn’t. He’s just working in the dark.
The Resurrection Perspective
The weeks after Easter are the perfect time to practice this. Why? Because Easter changes everything.
Before the cross, waiting was often about fear. Waiting for judgment. Waiting for the enemy to strike. Waiting for the end.
After the resurrection, waiting is about hope. It’s about knowing that the battle is won, even if the war isn’t over.
We don’t wait in despair. We wait in anticipation.
Think of the disciples after Jesus ascended. They were told to wait in Jerusalem. For ten days. Just ten days. It seems short, but for people who had just spent three years following a charismatic leader who suddenly died and then showed up alive, ten days of doing nothing was an eternity.
They didn’t possess a plan. They didn’t possess a strategy. They just waited.
And in that waiting, they were transformed. They went from frightened followers to bold witnesses. They became bold because they were filled with the Holy Spirit.
The waiting changed them. It stripped away their self-reliance. It stripped away their need for control. It left them with only God.
That’s what He wants for us too.
He wants us to stop striving. Stop trying to force the outcome. Stop trying to manage our own lives. He wants us to trust that He is working, even when we can’t see it.
How to Wait Well
So, how do we actually do this? How do we practice qavah in a world that’s obsessed with speed?
It starts with small moments of silence.
Try this: Tomorrow morning, before you check your phone, sit for five minutes. Just sit. Don’t pray. Don’t read. Don’t plan. Just sit. Feel the weight of your body on the chair. Listen to the sounds in the room. Breathe.
It will feel weird. You’ll want to pick up your phone. You’ll feel anxious. That’s normal. That’s your brain craving stimulation.
Stay.
In those moments, you’re not waiting for God to fix your problems. You’re waiting to remember who God is.
Another practice is to reframe your suffering. When you’re in pain, when you’re waiting for that diagnosis, that job offer, that reconciliation, don’t ask, "Why is this happening?" Ask, "What is God forming in me?"
Perhaps He’s forming patience. Perhaps He’s forming compassion. Perhaps He’s forming a deeper dependence on Him.
The waiting isn’t the problem. The waiting is the path.
And it leads to a destination we can’t yet imagine.
The Rope Tightens
There’s a story about a man who went to a master to learn how to be patient. The master handed him a heavy rock and said, "Carry this rock in one hand and a cup of water in the other. Walk around the courtyard. Don’t spill the water. Don’t drop the rock."
The man tried. It was hard. His arm shook. He spilled the water. He dropped the rock.
The master shook his head. "You’re trying too hard. You’re focusing on the outcome. You’re focusing on not spilling. You’re focusing on not dropping. You’re trying to control the result."
"What should I do?" the man asked.
"Focus on the balance," the master said. "Not the rock. Not the water. The balance between them."
Waiting on the Lord is like that.
It’s not about ignoring your problems. It’s not about ignoring your pain. It’s about holding your pain and your hope in the same hand. It’s about trusting that God is holding you steady.
It’s about knowing that the rope is tightening.
And one day, the tension will release. The wait will end. And you’ll look back and realize that the waiting was the most important part of your life.
Because in the waiting, you learned to trust. You learned to listen. You learned to love.
You learned to be still.
And that’s where the real work begins.
So, take a breath.
Put down the phone.
Stop striving.
Just wait.
And when you do, you’ll find that God is already there.
— "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."
