What If The Delay Is The Training

You can pray for something for years, finally get an open door, and still feel tempted to reject it because it does not look like you pictured. That tension sits at the center of this Kingdom Chaos conversation as I unpack what “real faith” actually looks like when life gets loud, money is tight, and the timeline is not yours. 

My faith did not start as an overnight spiritual makeover. It started with questions and an intellectual search for whether Christianity could stand up to evidence and history, then it moved into something deeper: experiencing God in real life. I share how facts helped me take an honest first step, but how trust was built through seasons of waiting on God, ministry transitions, and learning dependence when I could not control the outcome. 

We also get practical about the day-to-day struggle: comparison, distraction, and the constant white-noise of modern life. I talk about why God often gives “the next step” instead of a full blueprint, how waiting exposes what we really trust, and why faith is not pretending obstacles are not there. Faith is remembering God is bigger than the obstacles, and learning to ask for wisdom, courage, and strength for today. 

If this encouraged you, subscribe, share it with a friend who is in a waiting season, and leave a five-star rating and review so more people can find Kingdom Chaos.

Music by AlexGrohl from Pixabay

Transcript

Welcome To Kingdom Chaos

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to Kingdom Chaos, a podcast for anyone trying to live a purpose and faith-filled life in a loud and messy world. Jesus said his kingdom in another story, yet here we are navigating real life and real struggles. I'm not a guru, just someone learning that God's grace meets us even in the chaos. This is Kingdom Chaos where faith meets real life and purpose is still found in the mess. Hey everyone, welcome back to Kingdom Chaos. My name is Troy, and in today's episode, it's really going to be a continuation of an episode I did a couple of weeks ago about waiting on God. If you haven't listened to that yet, I encourage you to go back and listen to that one because it'll help for today's to really fill in the gaps. And because I'm going to build off of that story and uh talk about how my faith actually grew through those experiences that I had. So it really will help out if you go listen to that

A Quick Rating And Review Ask

SPEAKER_00 1:03

one. But before we jump into this, if you don't mind, if you like this podcast, it's helping you, um, maybe it's helping somebody you know, just leave a five-star rating, leave a review. It really helps us get out in front of people. Uh my hope for this podcast is really simple. I just want people to know that they're not alone uh in the chaos of life and that God is still working in the middle of everything that they're going through. So if you could do that, that'd

What Real Faith Looks Like

SPEAKER_00 1:27

be great. So today we're going to talk about faith, not church faith, not fake faith, not social media faith, but real faith. The kind of faith that builds slowly over time and through experiences that you have with God. When I first started following Jesus, my faith didn't look like what it does now. It wasn't instant, it took time. It wasn't some magic overnight pill or transformation that happened suddenly, that I didn't question anything ever again. My faith had to grow. And looking back now, I can see how God was building it piece by piece through different seasons of my life. What's interesting is I can look back even before I was following Christ to see how God was working in my life long before I recognized him. I can see how he was building my character through experiences I didn't even understand in the moment. Even things like public speaking, building relationships, learning how to care for people, learning leadership skills, God was preparing me in ways I couldn't see in the moment. And honestly, that's one of the hardest things about following God sometimes is like you don't know what he's doing, you can't see it in the moment. You actually understand usually when you look back after the season's done, not during it. So while you're in it, it often feels confusing, painful, delayed, just frustrating. But later, when you look back, you start to realize God was actually building something deeper inside you the whole time. Everybody's faith journey is different. That's important to understand because sometimes we compare our walk to someone else's walk with Christ, but God deals with people personally. Some people come to Christ through pain or addiction or loss, uh, some through intellectual searches and some through broken relationships. God knows how exactly to reach each individual person because he created them. The way God revealed himself to me might look different than the way he reveals himself to you. Even when two people go through the exact same hardship, God may work differently in each person through it. One couple might go through infidelity and come out of it stronger, and another couple may not survive it. One person may go through a job loss and become bitter, another may go through job loss and grow deeper in their faith. The situation isn't always what determines growth. It's whether or not we allow God to work through it and through us.

Facts Versus Experiencing God

SPEAKER_00 4:01

For me personally, my faith journey actually started more intellectually than it did emotionally. And I know for some people that sounds strange because sometimes people think faith means to turn your brain off. But for me, that wasn't the case. I didn't need absolute proof that God existed, but I did need some facts. I needed to know Christianity could actually stand up intellectually. So I started reading books by Lee Strobel like The Case for Christ and the Case for Faith. And what those books did for me was help me realize that Christianity wasn't blind faith. There was evidence, there was historical support, uh, there was reason behind belief. And once I had enough information to take a step forward, I did. What's interesting in this, the facts open the door for me, but the experiences with God is what built my faith. And there's a big difference between knowing God and experiencing him for yourself. Head knowledge can only take you so far, at some point there has to be some kind of a relationship. It becomes walking with him, trusting him, seeing him move, watching him work in your life. And honestly, that's when my faith started to explode. Not because life became easy, but because I started to see God show up in my life in ways I couldn't explain away anymore.

Waiting Seasons That Grow Trust

SPEAKER_00 5:29

A couple of episodes ago, I shared about the two-year journey I had in my life where I quit my job and I was called into ministry. And honestly, at the time, it looked irresponsible from the outside. We struggled financially, we accumulated lots of debt, we were stressed. My daughter during that time got married. My son, we had to buy him a car. A lot of things were going on, bills kept piling up. Life happened. There were moments where I prayed and prayed and prayed and honestly felt like nothing was changing. And in fact, somebody left me a comment when I posted a clip of one of my podcasts about that, about praying, and said, So you prayed and prayed and prayed, and when you stopped praying, God answered you. And that's not what I was saying. I was praying and praying and praying. God actually gave me the opportunity that I was praying for. But because it didn't happen the exact same way I wanted to, or in the timing I wanted to, I almost rejected it. And God showed me something powerful in that season. He showed me that sometimes when we pray and those answers come, we stop praying because it's not how it looked like like we wanted it to, or we we imagined it would. And instead of me going to God and saying, you know, asking questions like God, why did this take so long? Is this really from you? Help me understand the next steps. I almost rejected it because I was just tired. But eventually I trusted him and uh he you know he came through, and that season changed me deeply because for the first time in my life, I wasn't just reading about faith anymore, I was living it out. I was learning dependence on him, and dependency builds faith differently than information

Ministry Means Caring For People

SPEAKER_00 7:16

does. Then after being hired at church, God started another process in me. And honestly, this part took years. When I first felt called in ministry, I thought ministry meant one of two things. One, either preaching on stage to a bunch of people, whatever a bunch of people means to you, 50, 100, 10,000, or standing on a street corner with a megaphone and yelling about Jesus. That honestly was my understanding about ministry. But God slowly started to teach me something different. Ministry is caring for people, the people that are in front of you. Ministry is loving people well, serving, it's listening, it's walking through hurt in different seasons of people's lives. And over that five-year journey I had in production after I was hired at the church, God slowly stripped away my pride, my assumptions, my misunderstandings, and rebuilt my perspective completely. Then another transition happened. After years working in production in ministry, I felt another calling in my life. I knew he was moving me somewhere else, but I didn't know where. And that's another thing I've learned about God. He usually gives me enough vision for the next step, not the entire blueprint. I wish he gave me the whole blueprint sometimes, the the walls and the doors and where they're at and where the electrical is and the plumbing. And he doesn't. He doesn't work that way. He gives that next step in my life. I I wish I I was handed this map with all the answers and all the details and the timeline is clearly laid out. But if he did that, I probably wouldn't take that step, or at least it I would be much more hesitant. I I don't know. But if I knew all the answers and what was what lied ahead, uh that would probably be even more difficult for me to take those steps forward. But faith grows independence. So I stepped forward again, and what's crazy is I started seeing a pattern from pre previous seasons in my life, from previous experiences that I had, those delays and obstacles, the closed doors, the unexpected situations. But this time was different because now I had history with God, I had a relationship and I had experiences with Him. I could look back and say, He already brought me through impossible situations before, and that's one of the biggest ways faith grows through remembrance. You remember what God has already done. Eventually, there was an opportunity for me to move into another ministry role, but there was a

Faith Is Bigger Than Obstacles

SPEAKER_00 10:06

problem. There wasn't really anyone to take my place in production where I was at, so again, I had to wait. And waiting is one of the greatest faith-building tools God uses because waiting exposes what we really trust. Do we trust God only when things move fast or do we trust him even when things feel delayed? Then one Friday, one of our volunteers called me up and told me he had lost his job, and immediately something clicked inside of me. Not because I was happy he lost his job, I wasn't. Honestly, my heart broke for this person. But at the same time, I felt this overwhelming sense that God was moving pieces into place in real time. It was one of the strangest feelings I'd ever experienced. Being brokenhearted for a friend while simultaneously being excited watching God work in real time. And from there, things started to move quickly. Obstacles kept appearing and then disappearing, doors kept opening, situations that looked impossible suddenly worked out. And after a while, I stopped stressing over every obstacle because I'd already seen God move too many times. And that's when I realized something really important about faith. Faith isn't pretending there are no obstacles, faith is remembering God is bigger than those obstacles. Now, let me be clear. This doesn't mean I had no doubts or emotions. I'm I'm human. I still had moments where I questioned things. There were still moments of frustration. Uh, but something I actually did learn through the other experiences is I needed to go to God about those. I need to though those questions or doubts, frustrations, I had to go to God and talk to him about there wasn't always immediate answers, but there was there was always a sense of peace. There was always a sense of he was there working in the mess. Not that he was going to give me the answers of what's going to happen next, but that there were there were there was a peace about him working through the situations. And underneath it all, I just had to trust him because I've gone through this before. Maybe not the exact situation, but I've gone through the obstacles before. Not because I was spiritually strong, but because God had already proven himself. And today where I'm at in my walk with Christ now, my faith does does look different. And it looks different than it did years ago. And I I don't mean in the way that I have all the answers. I definitely don't. There are still things that I don't understand, there's still tragedies that happen in life and they're painful and confusing, but I can no longer deny God exists because I've experienced him too personally too often. There's too many moments in my life that go way beyond coincidence. They are God's providence. Too many answer prayers, too many perfectly timed situations, too many moments where God clearly moved. What once looked random to me looked like providence.

Wisdom For The Next Step

SPEAKER_00 13:28

And I think one problem that we have today is that our lives are so loud that we miss what God is doing. There's a constant noise, a constant distraction, a constant stress. It's like you know, that white noise or that your TV has that that uh the static on it and it shh sounds like that. And that's what life seems like sometimes. It's like white noise. And sometimes we need to step back long enough to recognize God is moving and he's been moving the entire time. One thing I've learned over the years is that I don't ask God for the entire blueprint anymore. I used to want all the answers. Now I ask for wisdom for that next step. Give me wisdom for today. Give me strength for today, give me courage for today. Because honestly, if he showed me everything, all the difficulties ahead, all the things I'm gonna run into of that season of my life, I probably would resist going through those doors. But he gave me enough light to take that next step. And then the next one, and then the next

Prayer And Final Encouragement

SPEAKER_00 14:37

one. So if you're listening today and you're in a season where it feels confusing, delayed, frustrated, uncertain, I just want to encourage you that faith is usually built slowly. There's no magic pill, there's no instant spiritual maturity. Faith grows through walking with God over time, through trust with him, through watching him move, through surviving difficult seasons with him. And one day you'll look back and realize he was building something in you the whole time. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for being patient with us while our faith grows. Thank you for not asking us to have everything figured out all at once. Help us trust you in the waiting season. Help us recognize you in the middle of the noise. Give us wisdom for the next step, courage to keep moving forward, and faith that continues to grow through relationships with you. We love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I hear call. All right. Experiencing him for yourself. You're gonna experience him for yourself, okay.