15 years ago, I was 9 months pregnant with our second child while my husband and I awaited responses from a handful of PhD programs he had applied to. While it was not a surprise that we would spend the year waiting for our future to unfold, it was complicated by answers like “waitlisted” or “alternate candidate.” Even though the entire year was spent pregnant with anticipation (in more ways than one), it was not until 9 days before my due date that we had clarity about which state we would move to in a manner of months.

8 days later I had an emergency c-section. It was not the plan that I would spend extra days in the hospital and have a driving restriction for a month, but it was beyond our control. A week later, Jeff walked in his graduation ceremony with his Master of Divinity. All four family members made it to the graduation. I wore whatever pants fit one week post c-section and spent a lot of the ceremony nursing in the bathroom.

Within weeks, it was time for home hunting in California, but we couldn’t find anything. We had a temporary housing option that fell through and eventually found a month-to-month rental less than two weeks before move-out day. When we arrived in California, we stayed in this rental, boxes unpacked, taking care of a 3-year-old and a newborn, while we searched for houses. We were eventually able to make an offer on our 7th anniversary, August 24, 2009.

No sooner did we put in the offer than Bank of America announced record delays with closing. Ours became the longest of our realtor’s career. We moved into our new home on Halloween. By this time, we were worse for the wear, having been in a state of constant readiness and frequent delay for the year. Jeff famously tells the story of how we were washing and reusing plasticware and were down to just a few as we waited for the keys with our dishes still packed from the move three months prior. The memory of trying to wash a plastic, disposable, spaghetti sauce-stained plate is salient.

Delay is hard and it makes little sense in the moment. I still cannot make sense of that particular delay in that season. It eventually landed us in a home and city we have lived in almost 15 years, but it seemed to have caused more trauma and hardship than necessary along the way. At age 29, my body and brain just absorbed it all and moved on.

Now, at 43, my brain and body have more wear and tear, and our family has been in another season of constant delay. 

• I left a job 15 months ago with a deep sense of what I was meant to do next, but no doors have opened.
• Our daughter had a clear sense of her top choice for college and pursued that choice through an early application, but the responses have been “deferred” and “waitlisted.”
• We landed on another college as the backup plan, but as soon as we were ready to submit the deposit, the price was raised.
• Due to record FAFSA processing delays in what is being called the most chaotic year to apply for colleges, she graduates from high school in about six weeks and we are still waiting for things beyond our control.

We have no clear picture of where we are headed. The extended period of delay that I am already in has helped me cope a bit better this time around, but it still brings up a range of emotions, including fear.

Delay can come despite your best efforts.

Delay can come in unprecedented ways.

Even dependable timelines people have been able to count on for generations can fly out the window.

It is not fun. You feel like the anomaly and live out a sense of a perfect storm.

This latest delay season has caused me to reflect quite a bit on what it means to deal with delay. To start, I believe delay has a variety of agents that come into play.

Agent # 1 – God

God may bring about delay to hold us back from something before the proper time. The most obvious example is the intricate timing that went into the long-awaited arrival of Jesus, the Messiah. Jesus could have come at any time in history, but he was born to Mary at the appointed time determined by God the Father. Simeon and Anna attested to this in Luke 2:22-38 after their life-long wait.

Agent #2 – The Enemy

The enemy brings delay as a tactic to fatigue, discourage, and make it appear as if he can thwart the plans of God. In 1 Thessalonians 2:17-18, Paul writes to the church saying he wanted to come to see them, but Satan blocked their way. In the Book of Job, Satan worked on Job to see if an extreme amount of hardship would wear him down to turn on God. He is the enemy of goodness and thriving. When delay is really harming and testing you, especially if you begin to believe lies like, “I’m worthless, ” “I’m a failure,” “I don’t deserve to live,” there is enemy attack that does not come from God. God would never delay something in your life with an intent to bring harm to you.

Agent #3 – Our Choices

Our human decisions that go against the will of God can bring about delay. Jonah was given an assignment to preach to Ninevah so they could turn to God, but his prejudice and disdain for them as a people led him to run in the opposite direction and get on a boat. God had to send a fish to swallow him as an intervention to get him back on track.

Agent #4 – Choices of Others

The choices of others can bring delay. In Genesis 37, Joseph had a dream that his brothers would bow down to him. They did not like the dream so they worked to get rid of him, selling him off. Joseph then had a hard and complicated life, but eventually rose to a position of power that allowed him to save not only his brothers, but all of the people of Israel from famine. Without knowing it, they ended up bowing down to Joseph in Egypt. God did not will for Joseph to be sold and falsely reported dead to his father. God did not will for him to be falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife. God redeemed it so that it would become the pathway to God’s people surviving famine.

Any and all agents could be a part of any given situation of delay. So, how do we discern and deal with it?

Usually we start with the positive, but today I want to start with the lesser discussed negative. First, we understand that God’s will can be interrupted and temporarily thwarted. Jesus tells us to pray for things to be on earth as it is in heaven. God’s will is reflected in heaven; when and how that breaks into earth is a fluid matter that involves our prayerful participation and obedience. While we like to blanket everything as “God’s will,” the imprecision of this statement can be damaging to people going through delays in seeing the will of God for their life. For example, we know it is God’s will for children to thrive, so when children suffer in poverty or abuse, this is not God’s will for them. When people are not healed on earth, it is not because God wills them sickness or death. We know his will for them by considering their reality in heaven. There is no sickness, sadness, or death there.

Second, we understand that God is sovereign over all of it. This, I believe, is what is intended to be conveyed by the harmful “God’s will” statements. Those statements are just too imprecise. It is not a matter of God willing terrible things for us. It is a matter of God being the true Sovereign and ruler over the world, meaning that even though not all the circumstances are good, God will work it out for good. The clash between terrible circumstances and God’s sovereignty is because of Satan’s temporary status as the ruler of this world. We live in a broken world, where Satan has been given domain to wreak havoc, but his timetable is limited and his power weaker than the one who will put him in his place. Therefore, we know that while our pain and circumstances may be the result of evil, they can be used by God for some good redemptive purpose for us and for others, like in the life of Jospeh.

Third, we fast and pray. We fast and pray because of the clash between two realities where we live–on the one hand, God’s sovereignty, and on the other hand, the enemy’s schemes. We need the full armor of God to deal with the opposition. Jesus says some dark powers only leave through fasting and prayer (Mt 17:21). We will have to fast for some difficult circumstances. We also fast and pray to align our hearts to God so that we can hear if there is any sin in us that we have not confessed and so that we can learn dependence on God more than anything, even daily bread.

Fourth, we ask the community of faith to wait with us in prayer and discernment. We can wait alone. Jesus was alone in his final hours on his path to the cross. Christian community is meant not to fix our problems, but to help us absorb them this side of heaven, in a posture of shared waiting. It can be particularly hard if you do not have a community to wait with, or if your community does not have a robust theology of suffering and waiting. Job’s friends certainly did not understand the delay of the Lord to remedy Job’s circumstances, which created more pain.

Lastly, I want to mention that there are indirect influences that cause delay. These realities do not necessarily have particular human or supernatural agency, though they can intersect with these powers. They have, in some ways, a life of their own and are pervasive in our world. For example, when Adam and Eve brought a freewill choice of disobedience into God’s creation, it inaugurated all kinds of brokenness beyond human agency that affects our lives – disease, barrenness, pestilence, natural disaster, etc. These are naturally occurring causes. They stem from the nature of our now imperfect world and its effect on our bodies and planet.

Then there are systemic causes. Systems are broken in our world. They start with human agency on an individual level and become complex systems of brokenness that continue to perpetuate a lack of thriving and goodness. You know a system is broken when it fails to meet its stated good purpose. For example our health care system does not contribute to the health and wellbeing of all. Our immigration system is painstakingly slow and excessively complicated. Our education system damages children as much as it educates them. While you can often find people making selfish, corrupt choices in systems, removing one person from a system typically will not resolve the brokenness. I heard one author call this the “principality” of systems (Ep 6:12). If you have ever had a friend attempt the process for a U.S. green card, you understand the delay and principalities of systems. When you stand on the other end of a broken system, experiencing delay, it can be crushing.

At times, when the delay in our lives is caused by no visible or singular agent to point to, it can become the most painstaking and lead to despair. Typically, in our humanness, we try to find some particular agent to blame.

If you are receiving messages telling you that delay is simply a matter of God’s will, I am sorry. God is in the picture, but not all waiting is because God willed it. It is a complex mix of multiple agents and dueling realities. It is about the world God made and the brokenness of humanity. It is about the Lord’s Prayer, where all of the agents and factors are named.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

My intent in acknowledging the many aspects and agents of delay is to shed light on something complex and unseen. There is nothing wrong with you if you are experiencing delay. It does not indicate that you have been forsaken by God, though it can feel that way. Let us hold space together so we can hold fast together when we experience seasons and circumstances of delay.