Finding Hope in Seasons of Unanswered Prayer
(plus interview with Lauren Gaskill)
There are few words more difficult to embrace than wait.
We live in a world designed for immediacy. Groceries arrive at our doorstep within hours. Answers appear with the click of a button. We track packages, monitor traffic, and schedule our lives down to the minute. Yet some of the deepest longings of the human heart refuse to follow our timelines.
Healing.
Restoration.
A prodigal child returning home.
A longing for marriage.
The desire to hold a baby in our arms.
Some prayers linger in heaven longer than we ever imagined they would.
Years ago, I met Lauren Gaskill when I was a guest speaker at a conference she hosted. At the time, she was navigating significant health challenges and the heartbreaking journey of infertility. Recently, as we sat down to record an episode of God-Sized Stories, I smiled as she shared that she is now the mother of two precious boys.
Life had changed. But the lessons she learned in the waiting had stayed with her.
Lauren’s new book, Having Done All: A Field Guide for the Spiritual Battle of Waiting, was born from those very seasons when she had done everything she knew to do. She had prayed. She had sought medical care. She had trusted God. And yet, the answers she desperately longed for had not arrived.
Perhaps you know that feeling.
You’ve prayed every prayer you know to pray. You’ve searched the Scriptures. You’ve sought wise counsel. And still, the breakthrough hasn’t come.
It is in those moments that the enemy whispers his favorite lies: God has forgotten you. Your faith isn’t strong enough. Hope is foolish.
But Scripture tells a different story.
In Ephesians 6:13, Paul writes, “And having done all, STAND.”
Not strive, manufacture outcomes, nor carry burdens God never intended us to bear.
SIMPLY…Stand.
There is a holy courage required to remain faithful in the waiting.
Lauren spoke candidly about how waiting is not passive resignation. It is active trust. It is choosing, day after day, to believe that God’s character remains good even when His plans remain hidden.
I think of Abraham waiting for the son he was promised. Hannah pouring out her grief before the Lord. David anointed as king long before he ever wore the crown.
The waiting did not mean God had abandoned them.
And it does not mean He has abandoned you.
I understand how difficult that truth can be to embrace. There have been seasons in my own life when God’s silence felt deafening. Seasons when I wondered whether the prayer I carried so tenderly would ever receive an answer. Yet looking back, I can often see that God was working in ways I could not perceive in the moment.
He was strengthening roots before producing fruit.
Teaching dependence before delivering answers.
Forming character alongside hope.
Waiting has a way of exposing what we truly believe about God. Is He trustworthy only when He says yes? Or is He trustworthy simply because of who He is?
The Psalmist reminds us, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord” (Psalm 27:14).
Notice that waiting and courage are intertwined. Perhaps that’s because remaining hopeful in the face of uncertainty requires extraordinary bravery.
Friend, if you find yourself in a season of unanswered prayer, know this: your waiting is not wasted.
God sees every tear.
He hears every whispered prayer uttered in the dark. And while His timing may not align with our expectations, His presence never leaves us.
The story isn’t over yet. Sometimes the miracle comes exactly as we hoped. Sometimes it arrives in a different form than we imagined. But always, God invites us to know Him more deeply in the process.
If this message resonates with your heart, I encourage you to listen to my conversation with Lauren Gaskill on God-Sized Stories. Her testimony offers honest encouragement for anyone learning what it means to keep standing when the answers haven’t come.
Because even in the waiting, yahweh is still writing beautiful, God-sized stories.
FIND OUT MORE:
- Purchase the book: Until the Miracle Comes
- Watch the interview below and ENTER THE GIVEAWAY from the form at the end of this post.
