Latest / Wilder Whispers Podcast / In The Waiting

Transcript

In The Waiting · Wilder Whispers Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hey friend, welcome to Wilder Whispers, a space where we slow down and listen for God's voice in the ordinary moments of life.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Shay Wooden, and I'm so glad you're here.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: We often expect God to speak through big moments, a sermon, a breakthrough, a perfectly quiet prayer time, and he does.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: But so often, he chooses quieter ways, in the middle of everyday life, in the unnoticed moments, in gentle whispers that invite us closer.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Each episode, I'll share one simple story and the quiet truth God revealed through it.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Not because it was extraordinary, but because he was present.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So wherever you are right now, take a breath, let's slow down, and listen together.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever found yourself asking God, why is this taking so long?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've been praying for healing, for direction, for restoration, for an open door.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it feels like all you've received is silence.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Waiting can be one of the hardest seasons of the Christian life because we naturally equate movement with progress.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: We assume that if our circumstances aren't changing, then nothing must be happening.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: But what if that's not true?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: What if God is doing his greatest work in the places we can't see?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: What if the waiting isn't empty?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Recently, the Holy Spirit reminded me of that truth from something as ordinary as planting a tree.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: In that simple moment, he gave me a whisper that completely changed the way I think about waiting.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Today I want to share that whisper with you.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Recently, we had our landscaping refreshed, and one of the new additions was a bloomerang lilac tree.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: When we picked it up from the nursery, they gave us some very specific planting instructions.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: First, loosen the root ball so the roots aren't wrapped around themselves.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: You want them free to grow outward.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Then, soak the tree thoroughly after you plant it.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: So far, that made perfect sense.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: But then came the part I wasn't expecting.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: They said now, don't water it again for a few days.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: I remember thinking that can't be right.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: A newly planted tree seems like it would need constant watering to help it get established, so I asked why.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: The nursery worker explained that if you keep watering the tree right away, the roots have no reason to grow deeper.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: They'll stay close to the surface where the water is easy to find.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: But if you wait a few days, the roots begin searching for water they can't yet see.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And in that searching, they grow deeper.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: As I stood there reflecting on those simple planting instructions, the Holy Spirit quietly whispered, It's in the waiting that your roots grow deep.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: I sat with those words for a moment.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Then I realized, maybe waiting isn't the absence of God's work.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's where his deepest work begins.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: If the Holy Spirit's whisper is true, it's in the waiting that your roots grow deep, then the question naturally becomes, what is God doing while I wait?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us think of waiting as empty space, the part of the story we'd rather skip, the delay between the prayer and the answer.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not how God sees it.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah writes, 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.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's in Isaiah 40, 31.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I've read that verse many times, but one day something stood out to me.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah doesn't simply say those who wait.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: He says those who wait on the Lord.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Our focus isn't the waiting, our focus is the Lord.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: The Hebrew word translated wait is keva.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: It carries the idea of waiting with confident expectation.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's the picture of stretching towards something with hope because you know it's worth waiting for.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Biblically speaking, waiting is never passive.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's not sitting on the sidelines wondering if God will eventually do something.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's actively placing our hope in Him.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's choosing to trust His character when we can't yet trace His hand.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's why waiting is never wasted.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because while we're waiting on the Lord, He's doing something in us that could never be accomplished if every prayer were answered immediately.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Waiting is an empty time.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Waiting is God's workspace.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if waiting isn't wasted, then why can't we see what God is doing?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think the answer is found in one of my favorite pictures in all of Scripture.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: In Jeremiah 17, 7 and 8, the prophet writes, Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: When I read those verses after planting that little tree, something stood out that I'd never really noticed before.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah doesn't begin with the fruit, he begins with the roots.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: We tend to celebrate what everyone can see the blossoms, the leaves, the harvest.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: But God is just as concerned, if not more so, with what no one else can see.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because fruit may be the evidence of light, but the roots are what sustain it.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: The nursery worker understood that.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: If the water stayed at the surface, the roots would never have to grow deeper.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: The tree might look healthy for a while, but when the heat came, when the dry season arrived, shallow roots wouldn't be enough.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what Jeremiah says.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: The tree isn't fearless because difficult seasons never come.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: The heat still comes, the drought still comes.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: The difference is that its roots have already learned where life is found.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if that's one of God's purposes in our waiting.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not simply to make us wait, but to teach our hearts to search more deeply for Him.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: To discover that He isn't just the one who gives us life, He is our life.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's why hidden growth is still growth.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Long before anyone sees the fruit, God is strengthening the roots.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's why winter can be such a difficult season.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Not just the season outside, but the seasons of life when everything feels barren, when the prayers seem unanswered, when the breakthrough doesn't come, when the joy you once felt seems distant, when it appears that nothing is growing.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever walked through a forest in the middle of winter, it's easy to think the trees are lifeless, their branches are bare, their leaves are gone, everything looks cold and still.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: But we know that's not true.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: The tree isn't dead, it's simply in a different season.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Life is still there, the roots are still firmly planted, and beneath the frozen ground, work is still taking place that no one can see.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder how often we misinterpret our spiritual winters.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: We assume that because we don't see fruit, God must not be working.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: But visible fruit has never been the measure of God's faithfulness.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Waiting seasons aren't evidence that God has forgotten you.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're often seasons of preparation.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Just because you can't see him working doesn't mean he has stopped working.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: He's preparing beneath the surface for what he will reveal in his perfect time.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: So why does God allow the waiting?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: James gives us the answer.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: He writes, Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces perseverance, but let perseverance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: James 1, 2, and 4.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Notice the progression.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Testing produces perseverance.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Perseverance produces maturity.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: God doesn't waste the difficult seasons of our lives, he uses them.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Every trial has a purpose.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Every delay has the potential to deepen our obedience on Christ.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Every season of waiting is shaping something eternal within us.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: That little bloomerang tree helped me understand this in a fresh way.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: The nursery wasn't withholding water because they wanted the tree to struggle.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: They were preparing it to thrive.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: A tree with shallow roots might look healthy for a season, but it won't stand when the wind blows or the drought comes.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: A tree with deep roots can weather both.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that what God desires for us?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Not a faith that's dependent on favorable circumstances, but a faith that's deeply rooted in Christ.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we pray, Lord, get me out of this season.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well God is saying I'm using this season to grow something in you that could never grow any other way.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: The waiting isn't the destination, neither is the trial.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: They're the means God uses to draw our roots deeper into Him, so that when the season of fruit arrives, we'll have the strength to sustain what He's entrusted to us.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's why God grows roots before He grows fruit.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: In the waiting, our roots grow deeper, our faith grows stronger, our character grows steadier, and when his timing is right, the fruit he produces will reveal the hidden work he was doing all along.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because fruit may inspire others, but it's the roots that keep us faithful.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you're in a waiting season right now.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: You've prayed, and heaven seems silent.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: You've obeyed, and your circumstances haven't changed.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: You've trusted God, yet the answer still hasn't come.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: If that's where you are, I want to encourage you with this thought.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Don't measure God's activity by what you can see.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: For days, nothing above the ground looked different.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone walking by would have assumed nothing was happening.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: But beneath the surface, the roots were reaching deeper in search of the water that would sustain its life.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Could it be that God is doing the same thing in you?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Could it be that this season is an evidence that he's forgotten you, but he's drawing you into a deeper dependence on him?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: The waiting may not be producing the answers you've been asking for, but it may be producing something even more valuable.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: A faith that is no longer sustained by favorable circumstances, but by Christ himself.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the greatest miracle of this season won't be that your circumstances finally change.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it will be that somewhere in the waiting you have changed.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because you've come to know him more deeply than you ever could have otherwise.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: So today, don't rush past the waiting.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Bring it to Jesus.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been measuring God's faithfulness by visible results, lay that expectation before him.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been discouraged because nothing seems to be changing, bring him your disappointment.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've been wondering whether he's still working, choose to trust what his word says over what your circumstances seem to say.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Then pray a different prayer.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not simply, Lord, when will this season end?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: But Lord, while I'm here, draw my roots deeper into you.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Teach me to trust you more.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Help me discover that you are enough, even before you change my circumstances.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because one day you look back and realize the season you wanted God to remove was the very season he used to root you more deeply in himself.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for reminding us that you are always at work, even when we can't see what you're doing.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Forgive us for the times we've mistaken your silence for your absence, or believe that waiting meant you had forgotten us.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Teach us to wait on you with hope and expectation, trusting that your timing is always good.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: When we're tempted to grow discouraged, draw our roots deeper in you.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: When life feels barren, remind us that hidden growth is still growing.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Help us to trust that you're doing beneath the surface what only you can do, strengthening our faith, shaping our character, and preparing us for the fruit you desire to bring forth in our lives.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Anchor us so deeply in your love, your presence, and your word that no season of drought, disappointment, or delay can pull us away from you.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: May our waiting never be wasted.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And when the fruit finally comes, may our lives bring glory to you, because every good thing has grown from roots that found their life in Christ.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: We ask this in the mighty name of Jesus.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: As we close today, I want to leave you with one final thought.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Think about the time between Good Friday and Easter morning.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: From the disciples' perspective, everything was over.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus had been crucified.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: The tomb was sealed.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Heaven seemed silent.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Hope appeared buried.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: If there was ever a moment when it seemed like heaven had gone silent, it was then.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, heaven's silence was never God's absence.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Behind the silence, he was accomplishing salvation.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: While everyone else saw a sealed tomb, God was defeating sin and death.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: His greatest work was taking place where no one could yet see it.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Just like that little tree, nothing above the surface appeared to be changing.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: But beneath the surface, the roots were growing deeper.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's why the Holy Spirit whispered, it's in the waiting that your roots grow deep.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: God's silence is never evidence of his absence.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're in a waiting season today, don't lose heart.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Keep waiting on the Lord.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Keep trusting his heart.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Keep sinking your roots deeper into him.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: One day you'll look back and discover that God was doing some of his deepest work during the season when it seemed he was doing nothing at all.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And today's closing whisper to carry with you is this: waiting isn't wasted.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's where your roots grow deep.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for spending this time with me on Wilder Whispers.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: I hope today's story reminded you that God is closer than we often realize and that he's still speaking, even in the ordinary moments of life.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Whispers are the language of closeness.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: They invite us to lean in.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: As you go about your day, whether you're working, resting, driving, or just trying to catch your breath, stay attentive.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: God is not far away.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's not silent.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: He's near and he's speaking.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep listening.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is Wilder Whispers, and I'm Shave Whitney.