As part of a three-part series on Navigating Life’s Uncertainties, today’s devotional focuses on waiting on God.
(I shared this message at a women’s retreat recently and have edited it for my readers here)
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What worries about the future live rent-free in your mind?
For me, at the moment, it’s the unknowns swirling around about where my daughter, a senior in high school, will go to college. Will she be at the same university as my son? If yes, and they’re both thousands of miles away in Indiana, what are we doing in India? Are we supposed to move too? What about our parents, friends, community, and ministry here?
I’m guessing you have your own rabbit trails of anxiety.
Research from leading universities across the US estimates that about 85–90% of what people stress about never materializes. Most of the mental energy we spend on worst-case scenarios is wasted.
And yet, even when we know the data, we still worry about future unknowns.
In the Bible, despite having the “data” of God’s promises, we see the patriarch Jacob stressing out before meeting his long-lost brother, Esau.
After 20 long years of working for his uncle Laban, Jacob finally leaves Haran and heads back to Canaan. The big question on his mind isn’t, “What if my gigantic family doesn’t like the weather or the school system or the grocery stores in Canaan?”
The pressing issue weighing him down is: What’s going to happen when I meet Esau?
Jacob had deceptively stolen his brother’s blessing with the world’s first-ever Halloween costume. He had fled for his life, made his fortune, and now God had told him to return to Canaan.
But there was one problem. And his name was Esau.
Yet even before Jacob prepared to meet Esau, God was preparing Jacob for what lay ahead.
Genesis 32:1 says, “Jacob also went on his way and the angels of God met him. When Jacob saw them, he said, “This is the camp of God!” So he named that place Mahanaim.
Mahanaim means “two camps.” Jacob observed that God had literally surrounded him with help—with two camps of angels enveloping him.
But right after this supernatural moment, Jacob begins strategizing about what to do when he encounters Esau. He sends messengers ahead with a super-humble message that would put any UN diplomat to shame.
But when the messengers return, they report that Esau is coming to meet him—with the slightly alarming intel that he has 400 gym bros with him.
Panic ensues. So Jacob pivots to Plan B. He divides the people and animals with him into two groups, thinking, “If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape.”
God, in His mercy, had already met Jacob with two camps of angels. But Jacob has quickly forgotten his Mahanaim moment and, ironically, prepares to send two camps of people and animals out to meet his brother.
He plans, panics, pivots to a new plan…
And Scripture records: “Then Jacob prayed…”
I find this unflinchingly real. It sounds suspiciously like something I’d do: first strategize, then sweat, then strategize some more—and only then remember that I can speak to God.
But if we want to wait on God, we must learn to start—not end—with prayer.
Jacob offers an honest, vulnerable prayer. He proclaims who God is, acknowledges what God has done for him, confesses his fears, and remembers God’s promises.
I would really like to have tied that prayer up with a nice pink bow and said, “Jacob prayed a beautiful prayer, submitted the situation to God, and trusted Him to work things out”
But that’s not what happened.
Jacob starts strategizing again. Scripture tells us, “from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother Esau.”
Jacob ignored the power of the pause—the space where he could have simply received before rushing into action. In the Bible, we call this: “Be still and know.”
His actions are all too familiar.
We pray, and then we worry. We pray, and then we scramble. We pray, and then we look at what we have with us—our resources, our money, our connections, our education—and figure out a way forward.
What we often fail to do is pray and then pause.
Pray and then be still and know that He is God and we are not.
Jacob sends entourage after entourage ahead of him, loaded with hundreds of animals and messages of peace. He relies on his stuff, his scripts, and his strategies instead of depending on God.
When things are uncertain, we want to take control. We want to start counting our animals.
So the question amid life’s unknowns is: Have we learned to wait on God?
1. Waiting means we REHEARSE the character of God and PREACH God’s Word to ourselves.
Jacob had received a promise from God 20 years earlier at Bethel:
“I will give you and your descendants the land on which you now lie… Look, I am with you, and I will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (Genesis 28:13–15)
God told Jacob who He was and gave him airtight promises. But Jacob had lost sight of those promises along the way. One key to waiting well is to rehearse God’s Word and preach God’s character to ourselves while we wait.
2. Waiting means we REMEMBER the MAHANAIM MOMENTS in our lives.
Two camps of angels surrounded Jacob. He had a spectacular Mahanaim moment.
But when the crisis came, that moment seemed to slip his mind.
Psalm 106:13 says, “But they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for his plan to unfold.”
Jacob soon forgot. And that got him into a tizzy of sending one convoy after another.
Do we go back to our own Mahanaim moments—those times when we remember God’s faithfulness, His provision, or even His supernatural intervention in our lives?
When the unknowns loom large, we need to remember what we already know about God.
3. Waiting means we REST and don’t RUSH after yielding our fears and future to Him
Can we challenge ourselves to pray and then rest? That doesn’t mean we don’t act. It means we don’t act in a frenzy or out of panic.
Waiting is not passive. It is a bold step. It is a step of trust.
Of course, it’s not a sin to use what we have to solve our problems. We need to work in the midst of our waiting. But the problem comes when, like Jacob, we panic and start pivoting so fast that we get dizzy. We grab what is at hand, and we stop holding on to God.
When we don’t know how to navigate life’s uncertainties, we can take the first step of waiting well on God.
We pray. We rest. We receive. We work. And ultimately, we trust the One who is in control.
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