A few years ago, I was babysitting my youngest granddaughter when we decided to bake cookies together.
She eagerly helped measure ingredients, stir the dough, and place the cookie sheets into the oven. But if you’ve ever baked with a child, you know there is one moment that tests their patience more than any other.
Waiting.
Every minute or so, a little face appeared in front of the oven door.
“Booga, are they done yet?”
“Not yet.”
A minute later she was back.
“How about now?”
“Nope.”
Then again.
“Now?”
At one point, she pressed her hands against the oven and declared, “Booga, they’re taking forever!”
Now, if you’ve read about my granddaughter Gretchen before, you know she is a hoot. She’s always talking and always on the lookout for a treat. I’m fairly certain her love language is snacks.
So when the cookies went into the oven, the waiting began.
Every minute or so she would wander back into the kitchen.
“Booga, are they done yet?”
“Not yet.”
Twelve minutes doesn’t sound like much to us. I can lose twelve minutes wandering around my house looking for my phone (which might be in my hand – no joke, I’ve done this). But to a four-year-old who knows warm chocolate chip cookies are waiting on the other side of that oven door, twelve minutes feels like an eternity.
The funny thing is that nothing was wrong. The oven was doing what ovens do. The little balls of dough were slowly spreading, rising, and turning golden brown. Everything was happening exactly as it should have been.
Just not fast enough for my Gretch.
She wanted cookies now.
As adults, we smile at a child’s impatience, but if we’re honest, aren’t we often the same way with God?
We pray for a prodigal child and wonder why they haven’t come home.
We ask for healing and question why the pain remains.
We seek direction and wonder why the path ahead still feels unclear.
We pray for a marriage, a friendship, a financial burden, a ministry opportunity, or an answer we’ve longed for, and after a while, we find ourselves peering through the glass asking the same question my granddaughter asked that afternoon.
“Lord, is it done yet?”
The answer is often the same one she received.
“Not yet.”
If there is one thing most of us struggle with, it is waiting.
We are elated when God says yes. We struggle when He says no, but at least we have an answer. It is the waiting that tests us. It is the waiting that exposes what we truly believe about God’s goodness, wisdom, and timing.
Perhaps that is why James closes his letter by talking so much about patience.
By the time we arrive at chapter 5, James has challenged us about trials, temptation, favoritism, our words, selfish ambition, conflict, pride, and faith that actually works. He has not been shy about calling us to spiritual maturity. Yet as he concludes, he seems to recognize something important: following Christ requires endurance.
Because the Christian life is not won by a strong start, but by a faithful finish.
The Greek word James uses for patience is makrothymia. It literally means “long-tempered.” We know what it means to be short-tempered. James calls believers to become long-tempered people, those who remain steadfast even when circumstances don’t change as quickly as they would like.
James points his readers to a farmer who waits for the precious fruit of the earth. The farmer plants, waters, works, and trusts. But he cannot force growth. He cannot rush the harvest. There is a lesson there for all of us.
We live in a world built on immediacy. We can order groceries with a click, stream movies instantly, and track packages down to the very street they are traveling on. Yet God’s work in our lives often unfolds much more slowly.
Perhaps that’s part of what makes waiting so difficult. We live in a culture that has conditioned us to expect immediate results. If we want information, we Google it. If we want dinner, we have it delivered. If we order a package, we can track its progress, street by street, until it arrives at our front door.
God, however, is rarely in a hurry.
Character takes time to develop. Wisdom is usually gained through seasons we would rather skip. Spiritual maturity grows slowly, often beneath the surface where no one can see it. And sometimes the answers we long for seem delayed not because God is absent, but because He is doing a deeper work than the one we are asking Him to do.
Sometimes the very thing we are waiting for is the place where God is doing His deepest work.
A.W. Tozer once wrote, “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.” Tozer wasn’t suggesting that God delights in our pain. Rather, he understood that God often uses seasons of waiting, refining, and dependence to accomplish things in us that comfort and convenience never could.
As we prepare to finish James together this week, I want to encourage you to sit with a simple question:
What am I doing while I wait?
Because waiting is never passive in Scripture. Biblical waiting is active trust. It is choosing faith when certainty is unavailable. It is continuing to obey when results are not yet visible. It is believing that God is at work even when we cannot see what He is doing.
Maybe the cookies in the oven weren’t a bad illustration after all.
Just because we can’t see the work doesn’t mean no work is happening.
What are you waiting on God for right now?
How do you typically respond when answers seem delayed?
Why do you think waiting is often more difficult than receiving a “no”?
What does waiting reveal about our trust in God?
Why do you think James ends his letter by emphasizing patience and endurance?
Is there an area of your life where you’ve been tempted to give up because God seems slow?
Can you think of a season of waiting that ultimately produced growth in your life?
What might God be teaching you right now that could only be learned through waiting?
What would faithfulness look like this week while you wait?
How might your perspective change if God’s primary concern is not your comfort, but your Christlikeness?
We’ll unpack James 5 together Wednesday evening as we conclude our study of this remarkably practical letter. I hope you’ll join us.
Blessings,
Dawn
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