What Does It Mean to Tarry?
- Yvonne Perry
- May 3
- 6 min read
The Ancient Art of Waiting on God — and Why It Still Changes Everything
We live in a world that has declared war on waiting. We have same-day delivery, instant streaming, fast food, and five-second downloads. If a webpage takes more than three seconds to load, we click away. If the line at the drive-through is too long, we leave. Waiting, in our culture, has been redefined as a problem to be solved — a malfunction in the system.
But then we open our Bibles and we find God saying something that stops us cold:
"Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." — Luke 24:49 (KJV)
Tarry. Wait. Remain. Stay.
This was the final instruction of Jesus before He ascended — not "get busy," not "figure it out." Just: Wait. So what does it actually mean?
What the Word Actually Means
The original Hebrew and Greek words for tarrying are far richer than our English translations suggest. Each one carries a picture of what holy waiting truly looks like.
HEBREW
Qavah (קָוָה)
To twist together like rope strands being braided. You weave your weakness into His strength. Isaiah 40:31.
GREEK
Meno (μένω)
To abide — to make your home in a place. "Abide in me, and I in you." (John 15:4) Waiting as dwelling, not wandering.
"When you qavah — when you wait on the Lord — you are not just sitting in silence. You are twisting yourself together with Him. Your emptiness is being braided into His fullness."
This is why Isaiah says those who wait will renew their strength. The Hebrew word for renew is chalaph — to exchange one thing for another. You give God your exhaustion; He gives you His power. Waiting is not empty time. Waiting is a transaction.
Those Who Tarried — and What Happened
The 120 in the Upper Room (Acts 1:12–14)
After the ascension, one hundred and twenty gathered in one accord — praying, unified, expectant. They tarried ten days. When Pentecost came, fire fell, wind blew, and three thousand souls were saved in a single day. Their waiting was not wasted time. It was the womb of the greatest outpouring in church history.
Hannah (1 Samuel 1)
Year after year, Hannah returned to the house of the Lord — barren, weeping, and misunderstood, even by the priest. But she kept coming back. She vowed. She trusted. She worshiped before the answer came. And God opened her womb, and she gave birth to Samuel — a prophet who would anoint kings and shape the course of Israel's history.
Abraham (Genesis 12–21 / Romans 4:19–20)
God promised Abraham a son at seventy-five. Isaac was not born until he was one hundred — twenty-five years of waiting. Scripture says he "staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief." His tarrying did not weaken his faith. It produced a faith that had been tested, tried, and proven like gold.
Simeon (Luke 2:25–35)
Simeon received a word from the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he had seen the Lord's Christ. He waited his entire life. And one morning, an ordinary couple walked into the temple with a baby — and Simeon took the child in his arms and said: "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace… mine eyes have seen thy salvation." Every moment of waiting was worth it. He held Salvation Himself.
The Cost and the Culture That Hates It
Let us be honest: waiting is not free. There is a real cost to tarrying.
The cost of delayed gratification. Our flesh demands what it wants now. Tarrying requires crucifying the part of us that insists on immediate fulfillment. Romans 8:18 says the sufferings of this present time are real — but they are not comparable to the glory that is coming.
The cost of being misunderstood. Hannah was called drunk. David was called a fugitive. People who tarry on God are often misread by those around them. Faith that waits looks foolish to the impatient eye.
The cost of spiritual warfare. The enemy knows what is on the other side of your waiting. His primary strategy is not direct opposition — it is fatigue. Galatians 6:9: "let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."
We live in the age of instant answers, instant content, instant connection, and instant validation. This has rewired something in us. We carry the expectation of immediate results into our relationship with God — and when the answer doesn't come on our schedule, we take matters into our own hands, like Sarah giving Hagar to Abraham, short-circuiting the divine timetable.
"The generation that cannot wait has also lost the ability to receive. You cannot hold what you are too impatient to wait for."
The Eternal Rewards Most People Never Think About
The rewards of tarrying are not just temporal. They are eternal. And they are not only about what you receive — they are about who you become.
You are formed into His likeness. James 1:3–4 tells us that the testing of faith produces endurance, so that we may be "perfect and entire, wanting nothing." The waiting is the curriculum of Christlikeness. 1 Peter 1:7 calls it more precious than gold tried in fire.
You receive more than you originally asked for. Hannah asked for a son. She received a prophet who changed a nation. The disciples waited ten days and received the fullness of the Holy Spirit — and three thousand souls were saved. God's answer is always larger than what you imagined when you began to wait. (Ephesians 3:20)
You develop a testimony that anchors others. When you have tarried and seen God come through, your story becomes a lifeline for someone else in their own wilderness. Psalm 107:2 — "let the redeemed of the Lord say so."
You store up an eternal weight of glory. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:17: our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. Every day you chose to trust God when it was hard — it is being recorded in eternity. The weight of what is coming dwarfs anything this world can offer.
Come Back to the Upper Room
One hundred and twenty ordinary people walked into an upper room with nothing but a promise. No formula, no plan B. Only His word: "Tarry."
So they sat. They prayed. They waited together. Ten days later, Heaven opened.
Sister, your upper room is wherever you are right now — the prayer closet, the kitchen floor, the car in the parking lot before you go inside. The upper room is the posture of a heart that refuses to run ahead of God.
"Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord."Psalm 27:14 (KJV)
Tarry. Kathizo. Qavah. Sit down and twist yourself with the One who holds every promise.
The fire is still falling. And you are still in the right room.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS:
In what area of your life are you currently waiting on God? How are you positioning yourself in that wait?
Which biblical example of tarrying resonates most with your own experience, and why?
What eternal reward of waiting had you not fully considered before? How does it shift your perspective?
Want to Go Deeper?
This post is just the beginning.
If the Holy Spirit stirred something in you today — if you found yourself lingering over the word qavah or sitting with the story of Simeon a little longer than expected — that is an invitation to go further.
The full in-depth teaching on What Does It Mean to Tarry? is available in the Bible Bloom Library. Inside, you will find an expanded word study covering all five original language words, additional biblical examples, a deeper look at the cost and eternal rewards of waiting, and reflection questions designed for personal study or small group discussion.
It is the kind of resource you can return to again and again — in your quiet time, your prayer journal, or as a teaching tool for the women in your life who are in a waiting season right now.
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