The Quiet Work Of God

When God made a promise to Abraham, it didn’t come to pass overnight. That promise took 25 years to be fulfilled (Genesis 12:4; 17:17). Abraham had no idea he’d be waiting that long for Isaac.

In Genesis 15, we see Abraham do business with God and enter into a covenant. The covenant wasn’t just about God giving Abraham a son. He was giving him identity, intimacy, and instruction. Abraham had to unlearn his old ways of idol worship and learn what it meant to minister to God, serve His altar, and live under this new covenant. This was the formation of a priest, not just a patriarch.

At around the 10-year mark, the weight of waiting began to wear on him (Genesis 16:3). Sarah, watching the delay unfold, saw Abraham’s waiting as failure. Desperate, she offered a ludicrous solution- one born not from faith, but from frustration. Abraham didn’t realize that the delay wasn’t denial. It was development. How often do we do the same?

We see this principle unfold again in Joseph’s life. God gave Joseph a dream of greatness, showing him as a ruler among his brothers. But almost immediately, his life took a sharp turn. He was betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, and later unjustly imprisoned. From the outside, it looked like the dream had died. But Scripture tells us, “Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him” (Psalm 105:19). Joseph’s season of obscurity in his prison cell wasn’t a punishment. It was a proving ground. The delay refined his character, deepened his dependence on God, and positioned him to carry the weight of the promise.

This reminds me of the parable of the yeast in Matthew 13:33 and Luke 13:20 –21. As yeast works slowly but thoroughly to transform dough from the inside out, so does God’s process in us. Divine delay is often where God allows His Spirit to permeate every area of our lives, transforming our thinking, habits, and understanding of Him. Just as yeast needs time, so does God’s process before the fulfillment of the promise.

What’s powerful is the contrast between Abraham and Joseph in their response to the principle of divine delay. Abraham, though a man of great faith, gave in to pressure and impatience, resulting in the birth of Ishmael through human effort. He tried to assist God instead of trusting God to fulfill His promise in His timing. On the other hand, Joseph remained faithful and surrendered, even in prison. There’s no record of him trying to manipulate his way to the top or force the dream to pass. He chose integrity over impulse, and in time, God elevated him. Abraham teaches us what not to do in delay; Joseph shows us how to wait well-with faith, humility, and trust in God’s sovereignty.

When God makes you wait, how you wait matters. Waiting is never passive in the Kingdom. It’s active, intentional, and refining. In these moments of delay, you're not being punished. It's in this moments of the quiet work of God that He is preparing you. Since He never sleeps nor slumbers (Psalm 121:1), He is still working and is watching over His word to see its fulfillment (Isaiah 55:11). Will you trust Him, even in the delay when you don’t understand His hand? Can you, like Job, say: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him” (Job 13:15 KJV)?