Waiting for God

In 1952, a little known Irish author named Samuel Beckett wrote a play called Waiting for Godot. While a New York Times reviewer described it as “an uneventful, maundering, loquacious drama,” the play struck a chord with audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. It became the best-known work of Beckett, who later won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. 

Considered an allegory that conveys “melancholy truths about the hopeless destiny of the human race,” the play has two main characters who wait by a withered tree for someone named Godot who never arrives.[i] In a biography of Beckett, Martin Esslin wrote that the two characters are “merely two human beings in the most basic human situation of being in the world and not knowing what they are there for. The two have no evidence that Godot, who clearly represents God, actually exists.”[ii]

We know that God exists, and waiting for him is not a pointless exercise, but it can still be difficult. We want God to take immediate action, and we get frustrated when he does not. In Isaiah 30:18, the prophet says that those who wait for God are blessed. Why? Why do we have to wait for God?

The answer lies earlier in chapter 30. There, God describes his children as stubborn. They don’t ask God for direction, and they are unwilling to listen to God or follow his instructions, preferring to rebel instead. It is easy to see ourselves in God’s description. Often, we find it difficult to wait for God to do what he wants, when he is ready, and when the time is right.

When we truly seek God’s will, God comes through for us because he loves us and wants the best for us. Waiting for God can be challenging, but it’s much better than waiting for something exciting to happen in Beckett’s famous play.

Questions for Reflection and Application

• How often do you find yourself asking God for what you want instead of trying to discern what God wants? How can you improve in this area?
• Why does God give you “the bread of adversity and the water of affliction”?
• Read the parable of the persistent widow (Luke 18:1–8). The woman did not wait patiently for justice; she nagged the judge constantly. Why did Jesus tell this parable? How are you to wait for God?

i Brooks Atkinson, “Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’”, The New York Times, April 20, 1956.

ii Martin J. Esslin, “Samuel Beckett: Irish Author”, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1998.