Watching for the Morning
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning. — Psalm 130:5–6
Some nights feel endless. We don’t just watch for the morning—we plead for it.
Through sleepless nights and with tear-stained pillows, we wait.
We wonder if God will come through. We wonder how long the darkness will last.
We’re desperate for God to show up, to act, to bring something—anything—different.
We’re watching. We’re waiting. We’re hoping he will deliver us.
For most of us, waiting isn’t passive. It takes everything we have. We watch intently. We cry out—sometimes with groans too deep for words. Like David in Psalm 69:3, we exclaim: “I am weary with crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.”
Have your eyes grown dim waiting for God?
Mine have.
I’ve come close to giving up—convinced God wasn’t coming.
I know what it’s like to pray with everything I have and still be disappointed.
And I know what it’s like to pray hollow, half-hearted prayers—not out of laziness, but because I don’t believe anything will change.
I know what it’s like to assume my suffering won’t end and to stop hoping altogether. Because hoping hurts.
Waiting doesn’t always end in resolution. So I stopped watching.
Stopped waiting.
I just trudged through.
Waiting is laced with silence and uncertainty. God feels distant, maybe even absent. We want direction or answers—something, anything, to hold onto. And when the night stretches on longer than we imagined, it can feel unbearable.
People often say it’s darkest before the dawn. While that depends on things like moon phase and weather, the principle still holds: until the first light breaks the horizon, it’s night. And almost everyone agrees—it’s coldest right before the sun comes up.
God Is Working in the Waiting
When we’re watching for the morning, it seems like nothing is happening. If we could see progress—just a little movement—it would be easier. But in the stillness and in the dark, we often see nothing.
It’s like planting a seed. The hard outer shell breaks down first in the cold, hidden soil. We water and wait, but for a while there’s no visible sign of life. That doesn’t mean there’s no life. Beneath the surface, everything is stirring. The moment the flower pushes through the ground isn’t when growth began—it’s when it became visible. The work was already underway.
Holy Saturday reminds me of that. The day between the horror of Good Friday and the joy of Easter morning. For the disciples, it would have felt like nothing was happening.
Jesus was in the tomb.
And with that, their dreams were dead.
Hope was buried.
Yet in that darkness, the greatest work was unfolding. Jesus defeated sin and death, preached to the spirits in prison (1 Peter 3:19), and rose from the grave while it was still dark (John 20:1). Seeing the empty tomb wasn’t the beginning of the miracle—it was the moment they finally knew it.
We live in chronos time—counting hours, days, years. But God works in kairos time—his appointed moment, the perfect intersection where his promises are fulfilled. Scripture says weeping may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5). That night might stretch into months or years. But when the dawn breaks, everything shifts. Kairos doesn’t always arrive when we want it—but it always comes right on time.
And often, the waiting itself is where the real transformation happens. Not because we see results, but because God is working in hidden ways. Sometimes to change our circumstances—but always to change us. In the waiting, God teaches us to trust. He forges our faith. He shows us his love. We learn to rely on him. We begin to really pray. We know his delight. Waiting is not wasted space. It’s sacred ground.
When Morning Dawns
When morning dawns, we finally see what God has done. When the light streams through and things that felt aimless or cruel start to take shape. Psalm 90:14 says he satisfies us with his love in the morning. Lamentations 3:23 says his mercies are new every morning. Psalm 46:5 reminds us that God will help us when morning dawns.
It’s not that God hasn’t been present in the night. He has. God has been in our midst all along. But in the morning, we see what we couldn’t see before.
Like watchmen on the wall, we strain our eyes in the dark. We’re not sure when it will happen, but we know light is coming. Slowly, shadows form. Shapes emerge. What was always there starts to become visible. And when the sun rises, the whole landscape looks different.
What Do We Do While We Wait?
Even when we believe that God is working, the hours still crawl. Waiting can feel endless and exhausting. So what do we do?
We lament. We sit in the grief. We pour out our hearts to God. We don’t minimize it or clean it up. We tell the truth about how hard it is.
We watch for shadows. We train our eyes to see signs of God’s presence. Like watchmen, we look closely, even when the light is dim.
We hold onto Scripture. For me, this is the only way I know to survive the night. I open my Bible and ask God to speak. His word is living and active. He reminds me of who he is, what he’s done, and what he’s promised. Sometimes I cling to just one verse. But it’s enough to keep going. Truly, “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope.” I put my hope in his never-changing, soul-reviving, Spirit-breathed word.
Waiting invites us to be still. Not inactive—but surrendered. Still enough to know that he is God. Still enough to believe that even when we see nothing, he is working.
So if you're in a long night right now, wondering if the morning will ever come, let me remind you: God is working in the dark.
You may not feel it. You may not see it. But he’s moving heaven and earth on your behalf. This night will not last forever.
And when the morning comes—when it finally dawns—you’ll see what God has been doing all along.
And it will be better than you imagined.
If you’re longing for more reminders that God is working in the waiting, my new devotional, Watching for the Morning, will be available on May 6!
You can preorder it here.