“God’s timing” has become the church’s most respectable excuse for doing nothing.
Say it out loud and it sounds spiritual. It sounds surrendered. It sounds like a man who trusts the Lord so deeply he’ll wait on Him to move. But most of the time, it’s not patience but cowardice .
Christian men are sitting on unstarted work, buried gifts, and stalled ambition. They have skills God gave them. They have callings God placed on their lives. And they have a neat little phrase that lets them off the hook for all of it.
“I’m just waiting on the Lord.”
Brother, the Lord already spoke and maybe you just don’t like what He said.
The Cost of Holy-Sounding Delay
Solomon saw this coming three thousand years ago:
“He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.” Ecclesiastes 11:4
If you wait for perfect conditions, you never plant and as such you never harvest. You just stand in the field holding your seed, telling everyone how patient you are.
Don’t forget about the servant in Matthew 25 who buried his talent. He didn’t lose it or waste it on sin but instead he preserved it. And his master called him wicked and slothful. The Lord didn’t commend his caution but condemned it.
I Hid Behind This Phrase
When I came back to the faith, I believed real Christian work meant street-preaching and soul-winning. Those are good and necessary things but they are not the gifts God gave me. I used “God’s timing” to postpone everything. If God wanted me to be a bold street preacher, He would make me one in His time.
So I did nothing.
I didn’t count my job or anything not directly tied to winning souls as beneficial to the Kingdom. Much later I learned that every area of life is to be dedicated to Christ. This includes my job, family, relationships, and everything else. My actions plant seeds and then doors open to talk about faith.
Since that shift I’ve been building software in a way that serves God’s Kingdom. Some men are gifted to preach boldly in the streets like the martyrs of the past. That’s not everyone’s calling and never has been.
Waiting-for-God as an excuse kept me from God’s work he designed for me entirely. Now I use my gifts, skills, and talents to advance the Kingdom through the power of Jesus Christ.
The Stewardship Audit
Knowing the problem isn’t enough so here’s a framework you can use. It’s five steps to separate holy patience from holy procrastination.
Step 1: List Your Gifts
Write down every skill, talent, and resource God has actually given you. Job skills, family, relationships, money, time, etc.
Do not spiritualize this.
Peter didn’t say to catalog only the “spiritual” gifts but all gifts.
“As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” 1 Peter 4:10
Every gift must be stewarded and not buried.
Step 2: Name What You’ve Postponed
What have you delayed with “it’s not God’s timing yet”?
The business you’ve been meaning to start, or the hard conversation with your wife. Maybe it’s the discipline you need to establish with your kids. Or the church role you keep declining.
Postponement needs a name before it can be killed. Write it down next to your gifts. Then look at the gap between what God put in your hands and what you’ve actually done with it.
This gap is your answer to the question, “What have you buried while calling it patience?”
Step 3: Test It Against Scripture
Two questions.
First: Is this disobedience to a clear command?
First Peter 4:10 says use the gift. Not eventually or when you feel ready but to use it. If Scripture commands action, “timing” is not a category. You don’t get to negotiate with a direct order from the Commander.
Second: Is this genuine waiting on a specific door only God can open?
Paul wanted to go to Macedonia. He planned, moved, and trusted God to direct the steps. He didn’t sit in Antioch for six years saying, “I’m waiting on the Lord’s timing.”
He went, and God redirected him when needed.
Solomon wrote, “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.” in Proverbs 16:9.
Your job is to plan and then start. God will take that direct you as you move forward.
Step 4: Act Inside Your Vocation
Paul told the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 7:17, “but as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all churches.” . Your calling is lived out where you already are.
And he told the Colossians, “and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.” in Colossians 3:23-24.
Your work is worship and your job is a ministry. Your faithfulness in the ordinary is the seed-planting God uses to advance His Kingdom. Do your work with excellence, love your family with intention, and build relationships with purpose.
Step 5: Review in 30 Days
Look at what you did and look at what God did with it.
You planned the way and the let God directed your steps. Now adjust and keep moving. Every month count your gifts, name your postponements, test them against Scripture, and act.
The man who does this for a year will not recognize his life. Because he stopped using sovereignty as an excuse for sloth.
What Have You Buried?
David didn’t wait for perfect conditions to fight Goliath. He used what was in his hand. Joshua didn’t wait for the Jordan to stop flowing on its own. He stepped in and God stopped it. Moses didn’t wait for Pharaoh to change his mind, he obeyed and God did the rest.
These men weren’t reckless, they were faithful. They acted on what God had already revealed, and they trusted Him with what He hadn’t.
The man waiting for a burning bush already has talents in his hands. The fire you’re waiting for is the fire of obedience.
What have you buried while calling it patience?
This is great! Something I recently heard fits with this: “The Spirit does what you can’t do, not what you’re unwilling to do.”
I see this a lot when it comes to getting married.