Why waiting messes with us (in all the right ways)

Here’s the thing we all know but hate admitting: waiting does something to us. Psychologists talk about how waiting pulls us out of autopilot and drops us right into vulnerability.
You can’t control the pace.
You can’t fast-forward the process.
You can’t hack your way through the bit that feels uncomfortable.

Waiting exposes desire. It surfaces fear. It shows you what story you’re telling yourself.
It’s raw, and a little wild, because suddenly you're no longer steering the ship — you’re sitting with the uncomfortable truth that you never really were.

And our brains? They’re not huge fans. Waiting elevates anxiety because it interrupts predictability. The mind goes scanning for danger, scanning for certainty, scanning for some way to feel okay again. Which is why waiting — real waiting — is not passive at all. It’s active inner work disguised as stillness.

Why waiting in the dark feels even heavier

Now take all of that… and switch off the lights.

Darkness amplifies waiting.
It messes with our sense of direction.
When you can’t see the horizon, you lose your bearings. The simplest step feels bigger, riskier, because vision is one of our main anchors.

It wakes up our survival instincts.
Your brain starts whispering ancient scripts: darkness = danger. Not because you’re weak or dramatic — but because your ancestors spent thousands of years trying not to get eaten.

And it slows down our sense of time.
Without visual cues, time stretches. Minutes feel like hours. Your body starts asking, “Are we safe? Is this okay? Are we there yet?” Waiting in the dark isn’t just waiting — it’s waiting without your usual coping mechanisms.

Which makes Isaiah’s words hit differently.

“The people walking in darkness…” — a bit of context

Isaiah 9 wasn’t written for people admiring fairy lights and sipping mulled wine. It was spoken into a world where hope felt thin. The northern tribes of Israel had been invaded. Families displaced. Land lost. The future felt foggy at best, terrifying at worst.

Darkness wasn’t metaphorical.
It was political, emotional, spiritual, communal.
People were waiting — not for a minor upgrade to their life — but for rescue, restoration, renewal.

So when Isaiah proclaims, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light,” he’s naming something brave:

That waiting is not wasted.
That darkness isn’t the end.
That a story can hold tension and still be good.

This is why that ancient line keeps echoing across centuries. It carries the ache of people who waited longer than they wanted — and the strange, stubborn hope that something better was still on its way.

A moment on the beach last week

Which brings me to what we did at Ocean Church last week.
We stood in a circle on the beach at Hamworthy, the tide breathing in and out behind us, the cold quietly settling in. We passed around fairy lights, letting them glow against the dark.

And then we named the things we’re waiting for — the things we’re carrying into the night, the things we hope might one day break open with light. and we asked Jesus to shed light on them.

It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t scripted.
It was just a bunch of humans refusing to pretend the darkness isn’t real… while choosing to believe it won’t have the final word.

There was something beautiful about that — holding light together, even when we’re not sure what the next step looks like.

And here’s where Christmas sneaks in

Christmas, at its core, is a story about waiting.
A people waiting.
A world waiting.
A God not rushing but arriving slowly, quietly, vulnerably.

It’s the reminder that light doesn’t always burst in. Sometimes it flickers first.
Sometimes it grows slowly.
Sometimes it looks like a baby, not a solution.

Waiting doesn’t mean nothing’s happening.
Waiting doesn’t mean you’re behind.
Waiting doesn’t mean the dark wins.

It just means the story is still unfolding.

So if you find yourself waiting — especially in some kind of darkness — maybe hold that thought from Isaiah in your pocket:
Light is coming. It always has. It always does.

And until then… we wait.
Together.