what do you do when God says not yet? You prayed, you prepared, you even stepped out on faith, and now you're stuck waiting. It feels like everything's on pause. The opportunity, the growth, the breakthrough. So now you lead in a season of delay. This is leading 10. I'm Chris Moore, and today we're diving into the challenge and the gift of waiting. Well. Psalm chapter 27, verse 14 says, wait on the Lord be of good courage and he shall strengthen thy heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord, David knew what it meant to wait. He was anointed king, yet spent many years running away from Saul. He had the promise, yet he faced delay after delay. And what does he say? Wait. On the Lord, be of good courage. He will strengthen your heart. Waiting is not your punishment, it's your preparation. We don't like to wait. We want to progress. We want momentum. We want the doors to open right now. But leadership, especially spiritual leadership, often requires patience. We didn't know that we needed because seasons of delay, they're not wasted seasons. They are the very shaping seasons that we need. So what does this say about us? Well, first it says we're impatient. We equate waiting with losing, especially in business, we think that if it's not happening fast, then it's not happening at all. But God's timeline, he is as different from ours. He's not working on the outcome. He's working on us. And what does this say about God? It shows us that he is faithful in the delay. He's actually strengthening you. He's refining you, he's positioning you, preparing you for what's next. Waiting isn't a passive action. It's active trust. Here's the danger. When delays come, we're tempted to force outcomes. We try to manufacture results instead of waiting for God's timing, but forced outcomes. That's when we carry a heavy cost. Think about Abraham. God promised him a son and when the delay stretched out too long, he and Sarah, they got impatient. They took matters into their own hands, and the fallout from this lasted generations, generations of strife. But what God promises he performs, it's just always on his schedule. Not on the one that we want. It's not ours. Maybe right now you are in that waiting season. You're waiting for a promotion, you're waiting for a breakthrough. You are waiting for clarity about something in front of you, and maybe you feel like absolutely nothing's happening. But trust me, if you are waiting on God, you're not wasting your time. And I know you feel like it, but you're not because he's doing more behind the scenes than you can see right now. When you look back after his provision, you'll see his care, you'll see his action through all of that. Right now, he's strengthening your faith. He's enlarging your capacity to handle what's coming, and he's aligning all these pieces, the pieces we can't see. And when his timing comes together, it's gonna happen fast and it will be faster at that time than you can even imagine right now. So what does this mean for leadership? Wait, with expectation, not frustration. And that's hard. That's really hard. Waiting doesn't mean that you don't do. Anything it means that you're staying faithful to the last instruction that you got from God, what he told you to do while you're trusting him to open the door, the next door at the right time for his plan. It means preparing like it's coming even when you can't see the sign yet. Think about it. Farmers don't dig up the seed every day to see if it's growing. They water it, they tend the soul, they trust the process. And leadership is the same. You stay faithful in the unseen and God brings the harvest in his time. Delays, they develop you. They teach you perseverance. They deepen your dependence on God. And here's a leadership secret that most people miss the skills and character you build in the waiting season. That's exactly what's gonna sustain you. When you get to that promotion season, when you get to what you're yearning for, what you see, God has for you. But if you skip the process that God is putting you through, then you miss all that preparation. So let me encourage you today. Don't rush what God is developing in you. Don't shortcut the growth he's cultivating. He's growing something within you. And don't despise the small. Very, very slow days where it seems like nothing's happening because every day you remain faithful doing the things that God has asked you to do. Right now, you're being strengthened for what's next. So here's your challenge for today. Write down one thing you're waiting on. Just one thing. One thing you're waiting on, and then beside it, write one thing that you're grateful for while you're waiting. Shift your focus from being frustrated to being prepared. Focus on preparation for what God has for you. Take yourself from that impatience to a mind of gratitude because gratitude turns waiting to worship. Be thankful for what God has already given you and for what he will give you. Delay is not denial. Silence is not absent and waiting. Is not wasting as long as you're doing what God wants you to do and God is working even when you can't see it. This is leading 10. I'm Chris Moore. Now go lead with patience and trust that what's ahead will be worth your weight. If this helps you reframe your waiting season, go ahead and hit the like button, subscribe so you don't miss what God's teaching us next. And share with someone you know, who feels stuck right now, and remind them that the waiting, the waiting is working and I'll see you next time.