OCT 27 | When God Says "Not Yet": Living in the Tension Between Promise and Fulfillment
You know what's harder than God saying "no"? God saying "yes... but not yet."
Because "no" at least gives you closure. You can grieve it, accept it, move on. But "not yet"? That keeps you in this excruciating limbo where you have to hold onto hope without knowing if you're being faithful or just foolish.
If you're currently in a season of waiting on God—wondering if He's forgotten you, questioning if you heard His voice correctly, or struggling to maintain faith when nothing seems to be moving—this article is for you. We're going to explore what the Bible actually teaches about God's timing, using three powerful stories that reveal how God works in the space between promise and fulfillment.
The Biblical Pattern of Divine Delay
Here's what nobody tells you about the Bible: it's full of "not yet" people. People God made promises to, and then made them wait. A long time. Like, decades.
Today we're examining three of them—Abraham, Hannah, and Elizabeth—because their stories reveal something crucial about how God actually works in the world. These aren't minor characters or footnotes in Scripture. These are foundational figures whose waiting shaped the entire redemptive story.
Understanding their experiences can transform how you navigate your own season of waiting on God's promises.
Abraham: Twenty-Five Years of Trusting God's Promise
Let's start with Abraham. God shows up when Abraham is 75 years old and delivers one of the most significant promises in all of Scripture: "I will make you the father of many nations" (Genesis 12:2).
Big promise. Clear promise. Impossible-to-misunderstand promise.
Then God makes him wait twenty-five years.
Twenty. Five. Years.
Think about that. Abraham receives this divine promise at an age when most people are thinking about retirement, not starting a family. And then he waits until he's 100 years old before Isaac is finally born.
What Happens During Abraham's Wait
Genesis doesn't treat this waiting period as filler content before the "real" story begins. The text spends thirteen chapters on Abraham's waiting. That's not accident—that's intentional. The waiting is the story. The waiting is where the transformation happens.
Genesis 15:6, right in the middle of Abraham's wait, gives us this crucial insight: "Abraham believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness."
The Hebrew word translated "believed" is 'aman—the root word where we get "amen." It means to be firm, to be established, to lean your full weight on something. Abraham is learning to put his full weight on God's promise even when his body is screaming "this is impossible."
This is faith development in real-time. Abraham isn't just waiting passively; he's being transformed. His understanding of God, his capacity to trust, his ability to hope against hope—all of this is being forged in the furnace of waiting on God's timing.
The Purpose Behind the Delay
Why did God make Abraham wait so long? The answer becomes clear when Isaac is finally born. Abraham is too old to take credit. Sarah is too old to conceive naturally. Everyone who witnesses this birth knows with absolute certainty: this is God's doing.
The delay served a purpose. It ensured that the promise would be fulfilled in a way that would glorify God, not human capability. The waiting stripped away Abraham's ability to accomplish this in his own strength, leaving only faith.
Hannah: From Desperation to Answered Prayer
Hannah's story in 1 Samuel 1 reveals a different dimension of waiting on God. She's married, desperately wants a child, and year after year—nothing happens.
The biblical text tells us that her rival wife Peninnah "would provoke her bitterly" about her childlessness. Every family gathering, every religious festival, Hannah endures the shame of being the woman without children in a culture where that defined your worth and secured your future.
Raw, Honest Prayer in the Waiting
What makes Hannah's story so powerful is how she prays. First Samuel 1:10-13 describes her in the temple at Shiloh, praying with such raw desperation that Eli the priest thinks she's drunk. The text says her lips were moving but no sound came out.
This isn't pretty prayer. This isn't "bless this food and our time together." This is wrestling. This is honest. This is "God, I can't do this anymore, and I'm not going to pretend I can."
And here's what's revolutionary: God doesn't rebuke her for it. He honors it.
What the Waiting Taught Hannah
Sometimes waiting on God teaches us to stop performing our faith and start actually having it. Hannah's waiting stripped away the religious pretense and left only genuine, desperate dependence on God.
When Samuel is finally born, Hannah doesn't forget what she learned in the waiting. She dedicates him to God's service—a promise made in her darkest moment of desperation, kept in her greatest moment of joy.
The waiting transformed Hannah's relationship with God from transactional to deeply personal. She learned that God hears the prayers no one else can hear, sees the tears no one else notices, and responds to authentic faith even when it looks like desperation.
Elizabeth: Faithful Through Decades of Unanswered Longing
Luke 1 introduces us to Elizabeth and Zechariah with this remarkable description: they are "righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord" (Luke 1:6).
Model believers. People who did everything right. And yet—childless and "advanced in years," biblical code for "really old."
The Burden of Feeling Overlooked
When Elizabeth finally conceives in her old age, she makes this profound statement: "Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people" (Luke 1:25).
That phrase "looked on me"—epeiden in Greek—isn't just a casual glance. It's the kind of seeing that moves God to action. It's the same word used when God "saw" the suffering of the Israelites in Egypt and moved to deliver them.
Elizabeth spent years, probably decades, feeling overlooked. Unseen. Wondering why God blessed others but not her, despite her faithfulness.
Faith That Doesn't Depend on Timing
What's remarkable about Elizabeth is that she remained faithful even when God's answer seemed to be a permanent "no." She didn't abandon her faith when the blessing didn't come. She continued walking blamelessly before God, not because it would get her what she wanted, but because she trusted God's character regardless of her circumstances.
This is mature faith. This is the kind of faith that survives the long, dark wait.
The Bigger Picture: God's Precision, Not Delay
Now here's where these three stories converge in a way that will blow your mind.
Abraham's son Isaac becomes the father of Jacob, who becomes Israel, whose line leads to King David, whose line leads to Jesus Christ.
Hannah's son Samuel anoints that King David, establishing the royal line from which the Messiah would come.
Elizabeth's son John the Baptist prepares the way for Jesus, fulfilling the prophecy of a messenger who would announce the coming of the Lord.
The waiting wasn't random. The timing was precise.
Isaac had to be born when Abraham was too old to take credit—so everyone would know this was God's miraculous intervention.
Samuel had to come from a desperate prayer so he'd grow up knowing he was an answer to his mother's cry, preparing him for his role as prophet and kingmaker.
John had to be born to elderly parents so his miraculous birth would point to the even more miraculous virgin birth coming six months later.
What God Does in the "Not Yet"
When we're in the middle of waiting on God, it feels like nothing is happening. But these three stories reveal that God is always working, even—especially—in the silence.
God Develops Character
The waiting builds faith muscles that can't be developed any other way. Abraham learns to trust God beyond what seems possible. Hannah learns authentic prayer. Elizabeth learns faithfulness that doesn't depend on getting what she wants.
These aren't lessons you learn in the blessing. These are lessons you learn in the wait.
God Aligns Timing
God isn't just preparing you; He's preparing circumstances, other people, opportunities, and a thousand factors you can't see. The delay isn't punishment—it's coordination.
Your "not yet" might be because someone else's "yes" isn't ready yet. Your promise might be connected to purposes bigger than you can see from where you're standing.
God Increases Glory
When the answer finally comes after a long wait, there's no question about who gets the credit. The longer the wait, the more impossible the promise seems, the clearer it becomes that God alone could have done this.
Living Faithfully in Your "Not Yet" Season
If you're currently waiting on God for healing, reconciliation, direction, provision, or any other promise that feels delayed, here's what these three biblical examples teach us:
The Waiting Is Part of Your Story
Don't treat this season as wasted time or as a pause before your real life begins. God is authoring something significant right now. The waiting isn't the interruption—it's an essential chapter.
Honest Struggle Isn't Lack of Faith
Hannah's desperate prayer, Abraham's questions to God, Elizabeth's years of feeling forgotten—God worked through all of it. You don't have to pretend to be okay. You don't have to put on a spiritual performance.
Raw, honest faith is still faith. Sometimes it's the strongest faith there is.
Trust the Bigger Picture
You might not see why you're waiting until you see what comes next. And sometimes not even then. But if Abraham, Hannah, and Elizabeth teach us anything, it's that "not yet" from God's mouth means "I'm working on something bigger than you can see right now."
God's delays are not denials. His "not yet" is not "not ever." His timing is not random—it's redemptive.
Finding Hope in the Wait
The most encouraging truth about these three stories is this: they all had happy endings. The promise came. The prayer was answered. The longing was fulfilled.
But even more encouraging is this: they were all transformed in the waiting. They didn't just receive what they were promised—they became people capable of stewarding what God wanted to give them.
Abraham became the father of faith, not just the father of nations. Hannah became a woman of prayer whose song of thanksgiving (1 Samuel 2) echoes in Mary's Magnificat centuries later. Elizabeth became part of the greatest story ever told—the coming of the Messiah.
The wait made them who they needed to be to receive what God wanted to give.
Your "Not Yet" Has Purpose
Maybe you're reading this in a season of deep frustration, wondering when God will finally move. Maybe you've been waiting so long that you're starting to question if you heard Him right in the first place.
You're in good company. Really good company. The kind of company that changed the world.
The question isn't "When, God?" The question is "What are You teaching me in this waiting that I couldn't learn any other way?"
Trust the "not yet." It might be the most important part of your story.
God hasn't forgotten you. He hasn't abandoned His promise. He's not ignoring your prayers. He's working—in you, around you, and through circumstances you can't yet see—to bring about something more beautiful than you can imagine.
The wait is hard. But the God who makes you wait is faithful, His timing is perfect, and His promises are sure.
Hold on. The "not yet" will become "now" at exactly the right moment.
An Invitation to go Deeper….
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