272 The Myth of the Holding Pattern

What Looks Like God’s Waiting Room Is Actually His Workshop

Jul 06, 2026

Good morning and hello friends.

I say it often. Maybe you’ve said it, too. “God has me in a holding pattern.” It slips out with a sigh, a shrug, a feeling of spiritual treadmiller. The scenery isn’t changing. The breakthrough hasn’t broken. The big sign hasn’t appeared. It feels like a succession of Groundhog Days, where the only movement is the sun rising and setting on the same set of unresolved prayers.

But let me ask us both a blunt question: Is it true?

When I use that phrase, what I’m really confessing is my blindness. I am blind to the things God is doing around me, in me, through me. My expectation is calibrated for the earthquake, the parting sea, the shout from heaven. So when the day passes in quiet obedience, in unseen resistance, in a small kindness offered, I file it under “Nothing Happened.” I miss the work because I’m looking for the wrong kind of worker.

But when I look back…really look back, through the rearview mirror of my life, those stretches I labeled “holding patterns” were nothing of the sort. God was there. He was just doing His work in small bites. Day-by-day, grain-by-grain construction.

Think of it like a beach with no sand. You stand on empty, hard-packed dirt. God places one grain of sand on that shore. Just one. The next day, He adds another. And another. Each day, a single grain. You walk that shore every morning and perceive no difference. The landscape seems static. You sigh and think, “Still here. Still waiting. Holding pattern.”

But months pass. Years pass. And one day you wake up, and you’re standing on a beach. A vast, golden, sun-warmed beach. You enjoy it. You walk on it, have picnics on it, meditate on its beauty. You forget the empty shore entirely. You forget the daily, imperceptible delivery. Because the finished product is so complete, so grand, you assume it must have arrived all at once. You missed the building because you were waiting for a building crew, not a patient, persistent Artist placing one grain at a time.

We do this. We set out each new day looking for the big “God move.” We want the Kairos moment, the Damascus road light, the prison-shaking earthquake. And when a time, times, and half a time goes by without it, we conclude we’re on pause. We overlook the small, the miniscule, the quiet miracle of incremental grace.

But Scripture is the story of the grain, not just the harvest. “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants” (Matthew 13:31-32, ESV). The work starts invisibly small. “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness” (2 Corinthians 9:10, ESV). The multiplication happens in His hands, over His time, often outside our sight.

We hear a lot about pruning. Cutting off dead branches. Purifying hearts in the furnace. And that’s true, He is a refiner’s fire. But there are two sides to His work. While He is cutting here, He is also building there. While He is simplifying one area, He is multiplying another. That multiplication often feels like a holding pattern because it lacks the drama of the cut.

So as we step into this new week, let’s adjust our eyes. Let’s be mindful of the grain of sand being added to our shoreline today. Did you choose patience over irritation? That’s a grain. Did you offer a silent prayer instead of a complaint? That’s a grain. Did you faithfully do the small, unseen task He set before you? That’s a grain. Give thanks for it. It only seems small because you lack the hindsight of a thousand tomorrows that will reveal the majestic coastline He is crafting.

If you think you’re in a holding pattern this season, stop looking for the air traffic controller’s signal. Look down. Look for the single grain of sand. Thank the Most High for it. Understand this: you are not in a waiting room. You are on the work site. And the Architect is always, always on the job.

What is one “grain of sand” you can identify from yesterday that you might have previously dismissed as nothing?

That is all, and thank you for reading.

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