Hi friend ☀︎

It's been a few weeks. Some of that was life, some of that was the exact thing this letter is about… so it felt fitting to wait until I actually had something to say.

Here's the thing I've been wrestling with in Bible study lately. We've been studying Sarah's life, and I cannot stop thinking about her.

Sarah was 65 years old when God promised her a son. Yeah….you clocked that right. She didn't have Isaac until she was 90.

She had 25 years of waiting: knowing the promise but not seeing it actualized. 25 years of watching every other woman in the village raise babies. 25 years having to explain to relatives why she still has no children. 25 years of going to bed every month wondering if this was gonna be the month, and the disappointment waking up to find out it wasn't.

If you've ever waited a long time for something — a job, a relationship, healing, a yes — you know that 25 years isn't a verse to skim past. It's a quarter of a century of hoping slowly turning into bracing for impact.

So at some point, Sarah did what a lot of us would do. She decided God needed help.

Yeah girl… you read that right. That decision (born out of exhaustion, not faithlessness) created a child named Ishmael, which brought about generational tensions and the pain that’s still playing out in the Middle East today.

Sarah wasn't a bad woman - she was a tired woman. A tired woman who decided she could read God's silence as God's absence. And then she paid for that misread for the rest of her life.

God still gave her Isaac after all that. 25 years after she first heard the promise, when she was 90 and well past anything resembling biological possibility, she had her son. The waiting was never God forgetting. It was God doing something Sarah couldn't see.

But by then, the damage from her detour was already done. Ever been there? I know I have.

psst… the ad below keeps steadfast free. one click goes a long way, friend ♡

Optimizing for growth? Go-to-Millions is Ari Murray’s ecommerce newsletter packed with proven tactics, creative that converts, and real operator insights—from product strategy to paid media. No mushy strategy. Just what’s working. Subscribe free for weekly ideas that drive revenue.

Sign up for free

I think there are two main ways we mess up waiting, and the Christian world usually only talks about the first one:

1. Trying to force God's hand - This is Sarah's mistake and probably all of ours in some ways, too. We manufacture a Hagar situation because we're tired of waiting. That can be forcing a relationship or taking a job we know isn't right or saying yes to something just to feel forward motion.

2. Going completely passive in the name of "trusting God's timing" -This we don't talk about enough. Where "trusting His time" becomes cover for not leaning into discomfort and stewarding what's already in front of us.

Both are forms of unfaithfulness. One looks like impatience, the other looks like piety. But both mean we've stopped partnering with God and started either running ahead of Him or sitting down behind Him.

Sarah's mistake wasn't that she did something. It was that she did something out of fear instead of faith.

Faithful waiting isn't passive. It's not Sarah lying around waiting for a miracle to fall on her.

It's praying through the silence instead of filling it, stewarding what God's already put in your hands while you wait for what He hasn't yet, doing the inner work He's clearly trying to do in you in the meantime (this is usually the part He's actually doing during the wait), and it’s staying present to your life even when the chapter you're in isn't the one you wanted.

It's the difference between waiting for a flight at the gate (alert, ready, paying attention) versus waiting passed out at the bar across the airport (technically you’re waiting ??? but there’s a good chance you’ll miss the boarding call).

Whatever you're waiting on right now, God hasn't forgotten you.

The wait IS the work, friend. The wait is where He's making you into the person who can actually receive what you've been asking for.

this week's practice: Identify one thing you've been waiting on God for. Then ask yourself two honest questions:
(1) Where am I tempted to force a Hagar moment to get ahead of Him?
(2) Where am I using "trust the timing" as an excuse not to grow, prepare, or steward what He's already given me?

honest prayer: Lord, I don't always know how to wait well. I want to either run ahead of You or sit down and stop trying. Teach me the third option. Teach me faithful waiting - the kind that prays through the silence, stewards the present, and trusts that You're doing more in this in-between than I can see. Don't let me settle for a Hagar when You're preparing an Isaac, and don't let me get so passive that I miss the work You're doing in me right now. In Your Son's name I pray, Amen.