What Does ‘Waiting On The Lord’ Really Mean?
But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. — Isaiah 40:31 NKJV

Wait on the Lord.

We have heard it many times in our lives, and if you haven’t give it some time. You probably will. But what exactly does it mean to wait on the Lord? You probably have this idea of a waiting room. Maybe reading a magazine, scrolling, and just waiting for the angel to pop through the door and say, “The Lord will see you now.”

Okay, probably not. But if you do, you really need to keep reading.
We have this idea that waiting on the Lord means to passively sit and persevere through the quiet and nothingness until something happens. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Yes, there are times you sit and wait for the Lord to speak, but it is definitely not a passive perseverance.

If you dig into the Hebrew word for wait, you’d find that there’s nothing passive about it. It’s the word Qavah and it actually has two different meanings, a literal one and a figurative one. The literal one means to twist or bind. Think about a rope being bound together with smaller pieces of rope. In the ancient world, to make a strong unbreakable cord, they’d take several weak, fragile fibers and bind them together.

The figurative meaning to look for with eager anticipation, to expect confidently, or to endure with forward looking tension. It’s like that rope is pulled tight with tension. It’s full of expectation and strength.

So it’s not a passive sitting around lounging. It’s a very active state of expectation. You’re entwining your life with God’s. You’re wrapping your strength in God’s strength. Everything you are is being weaved into everything God is.

If you jump back to verse 29, it says, “He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength.” That’s not out of place. Because if you keep going to verse 31, it says , “the LORD Shall renew their strength…” The Hebrew word for “renew” literally means to “exchange or substitute.”

The confident expectation of waiting includes the process of God binding his supernatural strength to ours, exchanging His ability for our abilities. It’s not your own physical strength being regenerated. It’s being exchanged for God’s ability working in you. And this is an Old Testament promise!

So, no, waiting is anything but passive. In fact, the waiting is actually intertwined with another process that the Word speaks about a lot (even though most of us don’t don it like we should). Qavah is the expectant waiting where the exchange happens, but Hagah is how that exchange happens.

The Hebrew word Hagah is usually translated to meditation.

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. — Joshua 1:8 NKJV

Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful; [2] But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night. [3] He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper. — Psalm 1:1-3 NKJV

And just so you know, the meditation that the Bible talks about is not the eastern kind of meditation. This is not about emptying the mind. It’s about filling the mind, the mouth, and the heart. The Hebrew word literally means to growl, mutter, or chew the cud. You’re running the word through your mind, your mouth, and your heart which produces the binding that comes from “waiting of the Lord.”

You are gathering your scattered, chaotic thoughts and pulling them taut like a rope, centering your expectation entirely on God. But you achieve that taut focus by continuously speaking, muttering, and repeating God’s promises. You cannot weave your life into God’s strength if your mind is wandering. You don’t get there by filling your life with the world, with social media, with anything except the Word of God.

Remember that Romans 10:17 says, “…faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” When you’re waiting on the Lord and meditating on the Word, you’re building faith because you’re constantly speaking the Word out of your mouth. If you want your strength renewed; if you want to be like a tree planted by rivers of water, then you’re going to have to expect the Lord to supernatural exchange His abilities for yours as you think, speak, and “chew” on the Word (meditate). That’s how it happens.

Faith is not passive. Our relationship with God is not passive. And waiting on the Lord is not passively. Actively seek Him and have a confident expectation of His supernatural empowerment as you meditate on His Word.