There is a stage of waiting where nothing happens at all. No result, no letter, no phone call, no date to count down to. The pregnancy test is negative again, the visa decision is still pending, the job applications go out and nothing comes back, the son or daughter still has not called. Each day looks like the one before, and the wait stops being an event you are getting through and becomes the situation you live in.
The passage for waiting on Bible Nudge is Psalm 13:1-2. It has a line for exactly those days: "having sorrow in my heart every day". It is a prayer said from inside a wait that has not moved, and it says so to God in plain words.
For the days that do not move
The passage
Psalm 13:1-2, from a psalm that asks God how long, and describes sorrow that comes back every day.
What it gives you
Words for turning the same thing over, day after day, and for feeling that God has gone quiet.
What people who study waiting have found
Anxiety can run higher while awaiting bad news than after it comes, which is part of why uncertainty weighs so much.
If you are wondering whether to stop
Fertility Network UK says there is no formula for that decision. It is yours.
Psalm 13:1-2
How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart every day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me?
That is the World English Bible. In the King James:
How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?
Two lines in it describe the static part of a wait more closely than almost anything else in the Psalms.
"Take counsel in my soul" is somebody going over the same question alone, with no one to settle it, and "every day" (the King James says "daily") means it does not stay settled overnight. That is what a long wait with no news is like from inside: the same thoughts, each morning, as if for the first time.
"How long will you hide your face from me?" is what silence from God feels like when you are the one praying into it. The psalm does not explain the silence or excuse it. It says it out loud, to the one who seems to be silent, which is a different thing from giving up on him.
What to do with it on an ordinary day
Read the two verses and notice which line is yours today. Some days it is the counsel in your own soul, the going round and round. Some days it is the hidden face. Some days it is only "every day".
Then consider saying that line, or your own version of it, as a prayer, without adding anything to make it sound more hopeful than it is. The psalm gives permission for exactly that. It is a prayer that tells God the wait has gone on too long, and Scripture keeps it that way.
The psalm does go on. In verse 5 the speaker says, "But I trust in your loving kindness." You can read Psalm 13:1-5 together. Nothing in the psalm tells you when your wait will end.
A month where nothing is written down can be its own kind of heavy.
What a wait with no news is like
The people who work with long waits describe the stillness itself, not only the thing being waited for.
Macmillan Cancer Support, writing about the weeks between tests and results, says that many people feel anxious while they wait and that "you may feel like you have no control over what is going to happen to you". The Refugee Council quotes Tesfom, who manages its asylum programs and was once an asylum seeker himself, on the "months, if not years, of waiting" people face, and on his own time in limbo: "I was anxious because of the uncertainty."
Fertility Network UK names the particular shape of a fertility wait, where each month brings its own answer. It calls it "the monthly cycle of hope and disappointment", and says it can be exhausting. It also notes that some days land harder than others, with Christmas or Mother's Day particularly difficult.
Why the not knowing weighs so much
Psychologists Kate Sweeny and Angelica Falkenstein compared waiting for bad news with receiving it, in two studies, one asking people to recall a time they waited for news that turned out badly and one following law graduates awaiting bar exam results that turned out to be a fail. Anxiety was higher while people waited than after the news came, though other feelings, such as disappointment and regret, were stronger afterward. It is a study of waiting for news, not of waits that last years, but it names something this kind of wait carries: the uncertainty has its own weight, separate from whatever the answer turns out to be.
Scripture includes waits that did not end in the text
The Bible keeps long waits on the record, including some that were not resolved within the lives of the people waiting.
The man Jesus met at the pool in Jerusalem in John 5 "had been sick for thirty-eight years". Jesus, the text says, "knew that he had been sick for a long time". Thirty-eight years is the only number given, and the story does not hurry past it.
Hebrews 11 lists people remembered for their faith, and then says of them, "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and embraced them from afar." At the end of the same chapter it says again that they "didn't receive the promise". The writer counts them faithful all the same.
None of that makes a wait shorter, and it is not offered as a reason your wait will turn out a particular way. It says that waiting a long time with nothing happening is not new, and that the Bible does not pretend otherwise.
The people around you
Much of the weight of a static wait is carried in company, in the questions at family meals and the news of other people's good news. Fertility Network UK, drawing on people going through fertility problems themselves, says that in general people would rather friends and relatives "show an interest" and ask how things are going than say nothing for fear of upsetting them. If you are the one waiting, it may help to tell one or two people which kind of question helps and which does not.
The things people say to somebody in a long wait, such as "it's all in God's timing", are covered on the page about waiting on God's timing, along with what tends to land badly and why.
The wait is often carried alongside other people's ordinary lives.
If you are wondering whether to stop
Some waits reach a point where the question is not how long but whether to keep going: another round of treatment, another appeal, another year of applications. Fertility Network UK, writing about when to stop fertility treatment, says there is "no magic formula" for knowing. That decision belongs to you and the people closest to it, and Psalm 13 does not make it for you in either direction.
Questions people ask
Why does God seem silent when I pray about this? The Bible does not give one answer. Psalm 13 names the experience directly, "how long will you hide your face from me?", and prays it rather than explaining it away.
How long did people in the Bible wait? Sometimes the text gives a number, as with the man in John 5 who had been ill thirty-eight years. Often it does not, and Hebrews 11 says some died without receiving what was promised.
Is it wrong to be angry about waiting? Psalm 13 asks God "how long" four times in two verses, and it is in Scripture as a prayer.
Where to go next
The Waiting topic holds Psalm 13 with the verses around it and the passages it was chosen over. For a different weight, Bible Nudge starts from whatever you type about it. Find a passage.
If a long wait has turned into despair and thoughts of not wanting to live, please reach a person today. In the United States, call or text 988 for the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. In Canada, call or text 9-8-8. In the UK and Republic of Ireland, Samaritans is on 116 123. Anywhere else, Find A Helpline lists services by country.
Words that come up here
Tap a term to see what it means.
Take counsel in my soul. The psalm's phrase for going over a problem alone, in your own mind, without anyone to settle it.