Trusting God’s Timing: Why It’s Hard + How to Get Better at It

Inside: Learn why trusting God’s timing is the best choice you can make. Plus, discover the keys to knowing when you need to wait on God and when you need to get up and act.

One of the hardest parts of being a Christian is trusting God’s timing. And if you’re like me, you get tripped up by it way more often than you’d care to admit.

I can’t tell you how many life-changing choices for the worse I’ve made because I didn’t trust God’s timing. On the surface, a few of them looked like they worked out just fine. But underneath, I was drowning in misery.

It was misery I could have avoided if I’d learned how to trust God’s timing.

And because I didn’t wait on Him—because I gave up on trusting Him—I wasted years of my life chasing the wrong things.

All because His timing didn’t line up with mine.

I paid a steep price for not trusting God’s timing. After decades of hard work and achievement, I had to decide if I wanted to start my life over from scratch and make the right choices this time.

I chose to start again. It’s how I learned to trust God’s timing.

It’s still the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But it’s still the best choice I’ve ever made, with the biggest payoff I’ve ever received.

Bonus: As a bonus for joining my weekly newsletter, get this free printable download—Your Faith & Trust Reboot. It gives you 5 simple tweaks to power up your prayers for direction so you can triumph over doubt and fear.

But First, Here’s the Problem

And now you’re on the struggle bus of wanting to trust in God’s timing but not being quite sure if you can.

I get it, girl. My years of wandering away from God led me to a palace where I didn’t trust God anymore. Take it from me, it’s not a nice place to hang out in—not for a minute and certainly not for years.

If you’re there now, I recommend you leave as soon as possible.

Yes, ditching God’s plan and timing and going your own way may lead you to many pleasures. But they’re for a moment. And before you know it, you’ll be right back where you started, desperate for answers to what makes you happy.

When you don’t trust God’s timing, you end up with too many days of regret in your life.

Still, I know it’s hard to trust God when you’ve prayed for His intervention—His rescue. But as fervent and as frequent as your prayers have been, God seems silent.

No answer, no rescue. And you’re left wondering why doesn’t God talk to me.

Or maybe He’s answered your prayers with, “Wait,” but you didn’t want to.

After all, why would you be OK with waiting when all you want to do is drop the pretense, stop trying to be happy, and feel true joy in your life?

Yes, trusting God’s timing isn’t easy. But not trusting it is worse.

The Wrong Way to Trust God’s Timing

As a Christian, I came to realize that I was sold a bald-faced lie. You have, too.

Here’s what you’ve been led to believe: When you ask God for something, or when He plants a desire in your heart, He’s supposed to give it to you on your timetable. Like, right now.

But it’s a lie, and you need to know the truth.

You see, trust in God’s timing and waiting on Him doesn’t mean:

1. Looking for Him to magic up an answer to your prayers like He’s the genie in your Bible.
2. Expecting Him to do everything while you do nothing as if you don’t have a part to play.
3. Trying to hurry Him along.

If you’ve done any or all of these things, girl, don’t feel too bad. You’re not the only one. I did them for years without ever seeing where I was going wrong.

I spent years on my knees, begging God to deliver me from a toxic relationship. For all those years, I felt unworthy and begged God to show me how to be a better woman to my boyfriend who kept hurting me emotionally.

I thought God never answered one of those prayers. But as it turned out, He was waiting for me to exit this ungodly relationship that He’d never designed or planned for me in the first place.

At the same time, I was miserable at work. So I prayed to God for deliverance and He told me to leave. But He didn’t share a plan or His timing for a new window of opportunity with me.

I was no Abram—heading out for unknown parts just because God said so. I thought it was madness to leave my highly positioned and compensated job with no clear plan.

So I clung to my well-paying, hated job by my fingernails way beyond when I should have let go.

Until my boss booted me out, in fact

Oh, the regret, humiliation, and misery I’ve endured all because I didn’t trust God’s timing!

So hear me when I say: Trusting God’s timing is hard. But the unhappiness you reap when you don’t trust Him is harder.

5 Bible Verses on God’s Timing

I can talk all day long, trying to convince you to trust in God’s timing. But you’re better off hearing God’s word about His timing for yourself.

For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.

Habakkuk 2:3 (ESV)

God has given you a dream, not to torment you by making you play keep-away with it. But He knows infinitely more than you do. This means He’ll bring your dream to life in His perfect timing, not yours.

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.

Lamentations 3:24-25 (ESV)

Remember the woman with the issue of blood? She did everything she could to get healed. Finally, after 12 years of suffering, God in His goodness delivered her healing with a simple brush of her fingers over Jesus’ robe.

So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor.

1 Peter 5:6 (NLT)

Of course, your right time was probably yesterday. But your victory will be all the sweeter when you let God have the glory in His timing.

He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.

Acts 1:7 (ESV)

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, especially when you feel like you’ve been waiting on God for years.

But timing is God’s business, not yours.

And trying to force His hand because you refuse to relinquish control won’t end well for you.

Is anything too hard for the Lord?

Genesis 18:14a (ESV)

While you wait and your dream seems impossible, remember one thing. You serve the God of all creation. He created everything you see and everything you can’t even perceive. Your dream is a cakewalk for Him.

The Right Way to Trust in God’s Timing

On the other hand, trusting God’s timing requires you to choose 3 things.

1. Believe God has a plan, even though you can’t see it.

You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.

Proverbs 19:21 (NLT)

2. Believe God knows infinitely more than you ever will. This means He knows infinitely better than you, and His timing is infinitely better than yours.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8-9 (ESV)

3. Believe God will work things out for your best because He said He would.

We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose.

Romans 8:28 (AMPC)

But trusting in God’s timing and waiting on Him isn’t passive. It doesn’t mean you do nothing while He snaps His holy fingers and grants your wishes.

Related: 7 Practical Bible Study Questions on Hearing the Voice of God

Instead, it means you practice courage and active faith—doing what you know to do and what He’s told you to do, while you wait for Him to do what only He can do.

So let’s say a prayer now for trusting God’s timing.

Bonus: As a bonus for joining my weekly newsletter, get this free printable download—Your Faith & Trust Reboot. It gives you 5 simple tweaks to power up your prayers for direction so you can triumph over doubt and fear.

A Prayer for Trust

Father, I’m sorry for mistaking you for a magician. I put in my order for what I wanted, then I sat back and waited for you to wave your wand and give it to me. Please forgive me.

Jesus, thank you for giving me the awesome privilege of being part of God’s family. Because this privilege means I don’t have to wonder what God wants me to do with my life.

Sometimes, the dream you’ve given me weighs heavy on my heart. I want it so badly, I can taste it. At those times, please help me to remember that I don’t have to be desperate for it. I don’t have to be in a rush because Your ways are perfect and Your timing is perfect. Always.

So, Holy Spirit, when I forget—when I’m tempted to believe my fickle feelings and when I’m afraid to trust—whisper Your love and wisdom in my ear. Remind me of the times when I chose not to trust You and ended up drowning in unhappiness, my soul dying a little more each day.

Remind me too of the times when I chose to trust You and ended up in a place of more joy and contentment than I ever thought possible.

Now, Lord, I submit my will to You as I wait in faith on Your timing. And, like Abram leaving Haran for parts unknown, I’ll keep planting and watering the seeds while I wait for You to bring the harvest. Because I know You honor those who honor You.

Thank You for the blessings and favor coming my way. Please help me to see beyond the tests and trials standing in their way. I pray in Jesus’ holy name, amen.

Your Payoff for Trusting God’s Timing

Yes, trusting God’s timing is one of the hardest parts of being a Christian.

It’s hard enough when you know you’re on the right track, walking in your purpose. But it can feel darn near impossible when you’re:

• Doing that walk without a map or any guarantees of success.
• Begging God to please tell you what to do and He seems silent.
• Having to wait for the thing

But I can tell you one thing: Trusting God’s timing is worth it.

Here’s what you gain when you trust in God’s timing:

1. Your faith gets tested and forged in fire.
2. The impurities get burned out of you, leaving behind the pure gold of knowing who you are in Christ.
3. You acquire life-changing, dream-getting confidence and resilience through unparalleled spiritual growth.

No, trusting God’s timing isn’t easy. But it’s the best thing you’ll ever do.

Wait and hope for and expect the Lord; be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout and enduring. Yes, wait for and hope for and expect the Lord.

Psalm 27:14 (AMPC)

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