Waiting is difficult enough when nothing urgent is happening. It becomes much harder when something we care deeply about seems to be getting worse while we wait. Those are the moments when we want God to act now, and every delay can leave us wondering why He does not seem to share our sense of urgency.

Jairus knew that feeling. His twelve-year-old daughter was dying, and he came to Jesus with the desperation of a father who knew he could not fix what was happening. He fell at Jesus’ feet and “besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death: I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live” (Mark 5:23). Jesus agreed to go with him, and for a moment Jairus must have felt tremendous relief. Jesus was coming. There was still hope.

But then Jesus stopped.

On the way to Jairus’ house, a woman who had suffered for twelve years reached through the crowd and touched Jesus’ garment. Jesus stopped to speak with her. We looked at her story last week and saw a woman who had waited twelve years for healing. But this week, I want to think about that same moment from Jairus’ perspective. While one person’s twelve-year wait was finally ending, Jairus was watching the final moments of his twelve-year-old daughter’s life slip away.

I wonder what Jairus was thinking as Jesus stood there talking to the woman. He had come to Jesus with an emergency. His daughter was dying. Surely this conversation could wait. Surely Jesus understood that they needed to hurry. Yet the Gospel gives no indication that Jesus was hurried at all.

Then came the news Jairus had feared: “Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any further?” (Mark 5:35). The delay now seemed disastrous. Jesus had been on His way, but He had not arrived in time.

Before Jairus could even respond, Jesus spoke directly to him: “Be not afraid, only believe” (Mark 5:36).

Those words challenge me because it is much easier to believe when God appears to be moving according to my timetable. It is harder when I have prayed and nothing seems to be changing, or when the situation actually gets worse while I am waiting. In those moments, I can begin to assume that God’s delay means that He is absent, unconcerned, or perhaps that the opportunity for Him to work has passed.

Jairus discovered that none of those things were true. Jesus continued to his house, took the little girl by the hand, and said, “Damsel, I say unto thee, arise” (Mark 5:41). Immediately, she got up and walked. What Jairus believed was too late was not too late for Jesus.

This passage does not promise that God will always resolve our circumstances exactly as we want Him to. But it does remind us that God is never rushed by the things that frighten us. He sees what we cannot see, knows what we do not know, and is still at work when His timing makes no sense to us.

Perhaps you are waiting on God right now, and the waiting has become harder because the situation seems to be getting worse. Jairus reminds us that we can trust Jesus even when He does not hurry. His delay is not His absence, and His timing is not evidence that He has forgotten us.

Sometimes faith means continuing to walk beside Jesus when we desperately wish He would move faster. “Be not afraid, only believe.”