Should you wait for that person you want to be with or is God telling you to move on? In this article, we will discuss 3 signs that God is actually telling you to wait for someone you want to be with.
This is a big topic though so I won’t be able to cover all the angles of how to know if God is saying move on or keep waiting, so here is a playlist of past videos I’ve done on this topic about waiting for someone.
1. God May Be Telling You to Wait for Someone If Waiting Is the Only Way You Will Know If You and This Person Will Date One Day
Knowing whether or not you should wait for someone you want to be with or if you should move on is complicated because the relationship variables that are unique to each situation are what will dictate what you should do. It’s way too simplistic to say to all people who want to be with someone that they all should just keep waiting. The reality is some of you should keep waiting and some of you have waited long enough and it’s time to move on.
How will you know which course of action is best for you? One sign that waiting is the right path for you is if waiting is the only path for you. In other words, there are situations where there is literally nothing else you can do but wait.
I usually recommend doing something proactive if you like someone because this then gives you a much better chance to get clarity. By being proactive you will usually cause the other person to reveal their feelings for you one way or the other. If they respond positively to you it probably means they are interested and if they respond negatively it means you should probably move on because they are not interested.
In some instances, though, it is possible for your proactive attempts towards this person to still leave you in the dark about what will happen. If you have tried something but now there is nothing left to do but wait to see what will happen next, oftentimes this is the Lord saying you should just wait for this person to see what will happen.
With that said, I strongly caution you to avoid extremely long seasons of waiting for someone. There comes a point where a long season of nothing happening is actually something happening. In other words, the lack of interest from this person or the lack of connection that is not being built over a long season of waiting is a sign you should stop waiting.
I don’t want to give exact timelines because each situation is different, but I would think about waiting for someone in terms of weeks or months rather than in terms of years and decades. If you have been waiting for years or decades for a specific person, usually that means God is leading you to move on because that is not the person he has for you.
Isaiah 40:31 states, “But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” If your waiting is not resulting in being strengthened, then you are not waiting on the Lord. You are just waiting. When you are waiting but God is telling you to get moving, your waiting will cause you to get stuck and cause a lack of progression to occur in your heart and life. But when God is truly telling you to wait and you are obeying him, it will result in positive things happening in your heart and life.
2. God May Be Telling You to Wait for Someone If You and This Person Do Want to Date But There Is a Specific Issue That Needs to Be Overcome First
Vagueness and generalities are your enemy when it comes to knowing if you should wait for someone or not. If you can’t identity a specific reason you should be waiting for someone, then usually this means you should not be waiting for them. Ideally you should be able to explain what you are waiting for in a sentence or two.
For example, “I believe God is leading me to wait for this person because we both just became Christians and we both agree that we need some time to develop in the Lord first before we are ready to date.” Or, “I believe I should wait for this person because we were hitting it off but then she got sent away on a 6-month work assignment overseas. When she gets back I would like to see how things progress between us.”
There should be a specific reason that is measurable and reasonable. If the reasoning is very vague like, “Well, I know this person said they are not interested in me but for some odd reason I just believe if I wait this person’s feelings will change one day.” Or, “Well, I know this person said they don’t ever want to date me but they also said they want to remain close friends. So maybe things will change if I just keep waiting.” When there is no reasonable hope that the variables will be any different if you do wait, usually this is a sign God is telling you not to wait.
Pray for the wisdom to know what God is saying to you. Ultimately it comes down to waiting on God and not just waiting on life. As Micah 7:7 states, “But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.”
3. God May Be Telling You to Wait for Someone If You Two Are Actually Headed Towards Dating But You Just Need More Time to Connect First
Probably the best reason to wait for someone you want to date is if there is tangible evidence that you two will date one day but you just need more time to connect. Christians often desire an abundance of confirmation before dating, which is good. But this also means it often takes a bit more time before they feel released to actually enter into a dating relationship.
If you and someone are connecting but it is still a bit too soon to make it official, God is probably telling you to keep connecting with this person while you also wait for the right season to progress into something more serious with him or her.
Whatever your situation may be, always depend on the Lord for your wisdom and counsel, for as Lamentation 3:25 states, “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.”