We are told to be watching and ready for the unexpected day the Lord Jesus Christ comes back for us. Per Matt 25 the parable of the virgins that requires waiting. How do we make sense of all this, bring it into our reality today in 2026? See below.
Those Who Wait
Waiting on God is not empty time. It is a life woven into Christ while we watch for Him.
Most of us learned the word wait from waiting rooms. A number is called. A door opens. Until then you sit, you scroll, you endure the delay. So when Scripture says wait on the Lord, the mind supplies that picture. Hands empty. Life paused. Faith reduced to holding still until God finally does something.
That picture cannot survive the Hebrew. And it cannot survive the way Jesus taught His people to watch for Him.
Waiting on God is not doing nothing. It is the most occupied work of the soul. We wrap our lives around the Lord. We seek His kingdom first. We keep a supply that can last a delay. We set our eyes on Christ, both now and then. The request remains second. The Bridegroom remains first.
The word itself
The main Hebrew verb behind wait on the Lord is qavah. Its root picture is not a chair. It is twisting, gathering, and binding strands into a cord. A single fiber snaps. Twisted together under tension, the same fibers become a rope that can bear weight.
So when Isaiah says they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, he is not promising rest to people who stopped moving. He is promising exchanged strength to people who have wrapped their weakness around God’s strength until the two are no longer separate. The next Hebrew word in that verse, often rendered renew, is closer to exchange. You do not manufacture eagle wings. You trade your spent strength for His.
“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31
That is why waiting seasons often feel more intense, not less. Tension is part of how rope is made. Faith is stretched. Hope is pulled taut. Love has to keep choosing. Joy and peace have to be practiced when the outcome is still unseen. You are not less engaged. You are more engaged, because the soul is doing the work of binding.
David uses the same verb when he says, Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Psalm 130 says it with a watchman’s ache.
“I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in His word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.” Psalm 130:5-6
A watchman is not napping by the gate. His whole body is leaned toward the east. Lamentations adds the same posture with a quieter line: the Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him. Waiting and seeking belong together. One does not cancel the other.
The thing you asked for is not first
If waiting is binding yourself to God, then the object of the wait cannot sit on the throne.
Jesus said it without ornament. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. The healing, the open door, the answered request, the change in the other person, even the relief you can taste from here: those are these things. They matter. He knows you have need of them. They are still second.
“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33
The kingdom is not a prize at the end of the wait. The kingdom is the Person you are wrapping your life around while you wait. When the request becomes the center, waiting turns into bargaining. When the King is the center, waiting becomes communion. Outcomes can delay. He does not.
That is why biblical waiting can be full of faith, hope, love, joy, and peace at the same time the circumstance is still unfinished. Those fruits are not the reward for getting what you wanted. They are what grows in the braid.
The longest wait in the New Testament
The church’s great qavah is not a smaller request. It is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
Paul names it the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior. Philippians says our citizenship is in heaven, from which we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body into conformity with His glory. Hebrews says He will appear a second time, apart from sin, unto them that look for Him. First Thessalonians says we wait for His Son from heaven. The Lord Himself shall descend. The dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” Titus 2:13
He comes at an hour we do not set. So the wait for His appearing is not calendar watching. It is the same binding. We are not staring at the sky with empty hands. We are wrapping our days around the Bridegroom who already claimed us, while the trumpet is still unheard.
After the ascension the disciples stood gazing up into heaven. Angels sent them on. This same Jesus shall so come. The look upward was not forbidden. It was incomplete. Watching for Him never meant abandoning the life being woven into Him on the ground.
The virgins and the oil
Matthew 25 puts a lamp in that wait. The kingdom of heaven is like ten virgins who took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom. Five were wise and five were foolish. The foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them. The wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
All ten go out to meet Him. All ten expect Him. All ten sleep when He is delayed. Delay is not the dividing line. Preparation through delay is.
At midnight there was a cry. Behold, the bridegroom cometh. Go ye out to meet him. Those who had kept a supply rose, trimmed their lamps, and went in with Him to the marriage. The door was shut. The others found that midnight is too late to borrow what love never stored.
“Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.” Matthew 25:13
Oil in Scripture is bound up with anointing, with the Spirit’s presence, with a life that stays lit. You do not have to force one narrow symbol onto every drop. The story’s burden is plain. Love that wants the Bridegroom keeps filling what the wait will burn. Readiness is not a one time decision at the start of the Christian life. It is a vessel that gets replenished while the night stretches.
The parable is about love and waiting at the same time. The wise were not busier than the foolish in public. They were faithful in the hidden work of keeping the flame possible. You cannot borrow someone else’s oil at midnight. Binding is personal. The cry will not wait while we go shop for a relationship we never cultivated.
We are not filling jars
In practical terms for today’s Christian, we are not literally filling oil jars. That picture belonged to a wedding night in first century Judea. What it pointed to still belongs to us.
The wise were not ready because they performed a better ritual. They were ready because they had a supply that could last a delay. For us that supply is not a liquid. It is a life being woven into Christ while we still live ordinary days.
Paul gives the location of that weaving in three small phrases the church has always lived inside: in Him, with Him, through Him. In Him we are placed. With Him we walk. Through Him we live and move and bear fruit. Waiting is not a fourth category beside those. Waiting is those three phrases under pressure, when the thing we asked for has not arrived and the Bridegroom has not yet appeared.
That is why the so called waiting season is not a pause in the Christian life. It is the Christian life with the decorations stripped off. You find out what you are actually bound to.
The oil, now, is this active engagement. Not a shelf of clay. A heart that keeps coming to be filled.
Faith keeps treating His word as more solid than the delay. Faith is not a mood. It is the next act of trust when sight has nothing to show. You open the Scripture again. You obey the last thing He said. You refuse to unbraid yourself from Him because the knot has not paid off yet.
Hope keeps leaning toward a Person, not a package. Hope that is seen is not hope. So hope stays pointed at Christ who is our life, and at the day He appears. The job, the healing, the restored relationship can be received with gratitude when they come. They cannot be allowed to sit in hope’s chair. That chair is His.
Love stays. Love is the strand that will not let the rope go slack. Love keeps the vessel in His presence when feelings have thinned. Love prays when the prayer feels like talking into weather. Love forgives. Love serves His people. Love still calls Him worthy when the night is long. The foolish ran out because they assumed the first affection would last the whole delay. Love that waits keeps coming back to be filled.
Joy is not the grin you put on when the answer lands. Joy is the settled gladness that He is the portion now. Rejoice in the Lord always is a waiting command. It yokes joy to Him, not to arrival.
Peace is the quiet of a life stayed on Him. You do not get peace by solving the wait. You get peace by refusing to move your eyes. The mind stayed on Him is kept. That keeping is part of the weave.
None of that is passive. It is the day’s work. It happens in traffic, in a waiting room, in a kitchen, in a church pew, in the middle of a night when sleep will not come. You are twisting the next strand. You are wrapping the next hour around Him. You are weaving an ordinary Tuesday into Christ.
Watching what?
Jesus said watch. Paul said keep awake. The Greek is the language of a man who refuses to drift off. It does not mean stand in the yard and scan the clouds. Staring at the sky can be as empty as staring at a closed door.
Watching answers a different question.
Watching what?
Christ. Now, and then. The same Person. The same look.
“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.” Hebrews 12:2
Not looking unto the timeline. Not looking unto the unanswered request. Not looking unto other people’s oil. Unto Him. Paul says that as we behold the glory of the Lord we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, by the Spirit. John says that when He appears we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is, and every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself. The future seeing and the present seeing are one hope. Eyes on Christ today is rehearsal for eyes on Christ when the cry comes at midnight.
“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure.” 1 John 3:2-3
So readiness is not a prophecy chart on the wall. Readiness is a gaze that has already chosen its object. You are ready when your life is already occupied with the One who is coming. You will not have to invent a relationship at midnight. You will not have to start looking then. The shout will find you already facing Him.
Colossians says it without waste. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above. When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. Notice the order. He is our life before He is our appearing. The then is of a piece with the now. If your eyes are on Him in the hidden place, they will not have to be redirected when the sky breaks.
How it holds together
Waiting on God and waiting for Jesus are not two topics. They are one motion.
Qavah is the Old Testament picture: wrap yourself into Him until His life is twisted through yours. Seek first the kingdom is the order of that wrapping: the King before the gift. The parable of the virgins is the New Testament picture of the same thing under delay: keep the oil, because love that waits does not assume the first filling will last the whole night. The appearing of the Lord, the catching away, the meeting in the air, is the midnight cry that makes the whole posture make sense. We are not waiting for a thing. We are waiting for a Person who arrives without our schedule.
So the season that looks like nothing is happening is often the season when the most is happening. Faith is reaching. Hope is leaning. Love is staying. Joy is choosing the Bridegroom over the timeline. Peace is resting in the One you are bound to, not in the outcome you can measure.
We do not fill jars. We keep filling the life. We open the Word to see Him, not only to harvest a tip for getting what we want faster. We pray to stay bound, not only to file the next need. We gather with the saints because the weave is also a people, His body, and isolation unravels what communion tightens. We practice faith when the report is unchanged. We tell hope where to stand. We let love do the unglamorous refilling. We choose joy in Him. We receive peace as the mind is kept.
That is watching. Not the sky. Christ. Both now and then.
Either way the rope holds
If He answers the smaller thing first, you have not wasted the weave. You were with Him. If the trumpet sounds before the smaller thing arrives, you have not missed the point. You were already looking at the only One who was ever first.
The secondary things may come. Many of them will. But they come as additions to a life already knit to Him. And if He comes for us before they arrive, we have not wasted the wait. We have spent it on the only thing that was ever first.
Keep the weave. Keep the eyes. Keep Him first.
“Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” Revelation 22:20
