Picture this. You’re scrolling through your phone, catching up on the world. You see announcement after announcement: the promotion, the new house, the perfect family vacation. It’s a highlight reel of blessings, a curated collection of mountaintop moments where everything seems to have worked out perfectly. It’s easy to look at that and then look at your own life—the quiet struggles, the prayers still waiting for answers, the long, winding road through the valley—and wonder, “Am I doing something wrong? Why does it seem so easy for them?” We often hear the end of the testimony, the triumphant conclusion, but we rarely get a front-row seat to the messy, uncertain, and often painful process of waiting in the middle. We see Joseph in the palace, but we forget the years he spent in the pit and the prison. We celebrate the victory, but we gloss over the battle.
What if the real power, the most profound encouragement, isn’t just in the destination, but in the journey itself? The Bible, particularly in the Gospel of Luke, offers us a refreshingly honest look at this very idea. Luke, a doctor by trade, wasn’t content with just the highlights. He approached the story of Jesus with the precision of a physician, performing what could be described as a spiritual “autopsy” on the events. He sought out eyewitnesses, dug into the details, and presented an orderly account not just of the miracles, but of the very human reality of those who were awaiting the King. He shows us that waiting on a promise from God is rarely a neat and tidy affair. It’s filled with doubt, fear, long periods of silence, and moments of breathtaking, unexpected grace. It’s in this raw, unfiltered narrative that we find the permission to be honest about our own journey and the faith to keep walking it.
The highlight reel vs. the real story
So often, when we hear a testimony, we get the condensed version. It’s the story of victory, neatly packaged and presented with a bow. We hear, “I was in a desperate place, and then God raised me up!” While true, this summary often skips the most relatable part: the valley. Luke refuses to do this. He understands that to truly grasp the magnitude of the heights, we must first understand the depths. Without Luke’s meticulous account, we wouldn’t know about the conception of John the Baptist, the angel’s visit to his aging father Zechariah, or the profound moment when the unborn John recognized the unborn Jesus. We’d miss the story of the shepherds in the field, the prophecies spoken over the infant Jesus in the temple, and the astounding wisdom of a 12-year-old Jesus amazing the scholars. These aren’t just footnotes; they are the small, crucial testimonies that build a larger narrative of faith. Luke pulls back the curtain to show us what it was really like for those who were awaiting the promise. He reveals that their journey, like ours, was not a simple, straight line from promise to fulfillment. It was a path marked by both human frailty and divine intervention.
When doubt speaks louder than an angel
Let’s step into the temple with Zechariah. This wasn’t just any day for him. As one of potentially 20,000 priests, the opportunity to enter the holy place and burn incense before the altar was a once-in-a-lifetime honor. He’s in the very presence of God, performing his sacred duty, when an angel of the Lord, Gabriel himself, appears. Imagine the shock, the fear, the awe of that moment. The angel brings the news he and his wife, Elizabeth, have prayed for their entire lives: they will have a son. A son who will be great, filled with the Holy Spirit, and who will prepare the way for the Lord. This is the ultimate mountaintop moment. And what is Zechariah’s response? “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years.”
In the face of a direct message from God’s messenger, Zechariah’s response came not from faith, but from a place of deep-seated unbelief. For years, his identity had likely been shaped by his reality: the disappointment of seemingly unanswered prayer, the cultural reproach of being childless. His challenge had become his identity. He couldn’t see past the evidence of his old age to the possibility of God’s power. The angel’s response is swift and telling. Zechariah becomes mute. It’s a fascinating consequence. It’s as if the angel declares, “Since you chose to speak words of doubt in this holy moment, you will not be allowed to speak at all. You are not going to be allowed to talk yourself out of this blessing.” For nearly a year, Zechariah is silenced, a walking, breathing testament to both a divine promise and a human failure to believe it. His story is a powerful, if uncomfortable, mirror for our own lives. How often do we allow our past disappointments and present challenges to shout louder than God’s promises? How often do we let our identity get so wrapped up in our struggle that we can’t imagine a different reality, even when God Himself presents it to us?
The pride that keeps us silent
Zechariah’s doubt was vocalized in a sacred place, but our doubts often manifest as silence in our communities. Why do we hesitate to share the reality of what we’re walking through? Why do we curate our lives to show only the victories and hide the struggles? The answer, more often than not, is pride. We fear losing face in the eyes of others. We worry that if people knew about our doubts, our fears, or the true messiness of our situation, they would think less of us. This is nothing more than the fear of man, which the Bible calls a snare. “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe” (Proverbs 29:25). This pride-fueled silence is a trap. It isolates us and, crucially, it robs God of the glory He receives when His power is made perfect in our weakness.
When we only share the highlight reel, we create a false narrative that the Christian life is an easy, effortless walk for everyone but us. People see us blessed, but they don’t see the valley we walked through to get there. They don’t see the moments we were close to giving up before God stepped in. By hiding the process, we prevent our story from becoming a source of faith for someone else who is in the middle of their own battle. A true testimony isn’t playing the victim card; it’s honestly declaring, “This is where I was. This was the reality of my struggle. I was at my end, and then God did this. The only reason I am standing here today is because of His goodness.” That is the kind of story that builds real, resilient faith in a community.
The power of an authentic testimony
The solution, then, is to embrace the full reality of our lives and to share our testimonies with the same honesty Luke used. The power of Joseph’s story isn’t just that he became second-in-command of Egypt; it’s that he was a forgotten prisoner in captivity first. The contrast is what gives the story its power and makes it relatable. Your story is no different. We must be able to embrace the reality of the challenges so that the testimony of what God does can be truly seen. When we share the whole story—the hardship and the help, the pain and the provision—we give people more than just an inspiring ending. We give them a roadmap of faith for their own journey. We show them that it’s okay to go through struggles and that God’s faithfulness is not dependent on our flawless performance. In fact, His faithfulness often shines brightest against the backdrop of our most embarrassing moments and deepest flaws, just as it did with Peter, David, and Zechariah. As long as our hearts are surrendered to Him, we are not strong enough to mess up His plan.
Waiting well: the lesson from Simeon and Anna
So, what does it look like to wait effectively? Luke gives us two beautiful examples in Simeon and Anna. These were not passive bystanders; they were active participants in the waiting. Simeon was a righteous and devout man, filled with the Holy Spirit, who had been given a personal promise that he would not die before seeing the Messiah. Anna, a prophetess who had been a widow for most of her long life, never left the temple, worshiping night and day with prayer and fasting for 84 years. Their lives were defined by faithful, expectant waiting. And what was the result? The Holy Spirit orchestrated a divine encounter for them. At the exact moment Mary and Joseph brought the infant Jesus to the temple, the Spirit moved Simeon to be there. He took the baby in his arms, praised God, and recognized him as the long-awaited salvation of Israel.
Simeon and Anna saw the promise fulfilled in a way others did not, because their lives were postured to see it. They knew, because of the Holy Spirit in them, that they were holding the promise, even though its full manifestation was still thirty years away. This is the fruit of waiting in truth. When we are faithful in our own waiting—when we serve, pray, and seek God even when the promise seems far off—we can expect God to orchestrate divine encounters in our lives. He will put us in the right place at the right time, to speak to the right person, or to receive the very word of encouragement we need. It doesn’t mean life becomes easy—Anna was still a widow—but it means we are positioned to see and participate in the glory of what God is doing.
Gaining an eagle’s perspective
The Bible often speaks of waiting on the Lord, but our modern understanding of “waiting” can be passive, like waiting in a long line. The Hebrew word, however, is active. It implies looking for, hoping, and expecting—much like a waiter actively attending to a table, anticipating every need. Isaiah 40 promises that “those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles.” Waiting on God isn’t about sitting idly by; it’s an active engagement that gives us a completely different perspective. Like an eagle soaring high above a storm, waiting on God lifts us above the turmoil of our immediate circumstances. It allows us to see our challenges from His vantage point. We gain His perspective, which brings strength to the weak and power to the faint. It’s in this active, expectant waiting that we find the courage to keep going, even when the journey is long and the path is unclear.
Your story is part of the rumble
Before Jesus’s birth, there was a spiritual rumble throughout Judea. A sense of anticipation was building. An elderly priest saw an angel and was struck speechless. Shepherds reported a heavenly choir in a field. An old woman became pregnant against all odds. These individual, seemingly small testimonies created a murmur that God was on the move. Something was happening. Today, that same rumble is happening in our midst. God is doing something, and your story is a part of it. Your authentic, messy, real-life testimony of navigating the valley and holding to God’s promises is a vital part of what He is building. It’s a marker of His movement, a flag of faith for others to see. Let us, like Luke, commit to telling the true, full account. Let’s share the little things, the struggles, and the breakthroughs, because it’s in these real stories that faith is built. Your journey of waiting is not in vain. It is crafting a testimony that will echo for years to come, declaring that God is faithful.
