Everyone's celebrating something. I'm still waiting.

Watching other people receive what you have been asking for makes the waiting feel like a verdict. The instruction here arrives before anything changes — sing first, and widen the tent while it is still empty. Noah built before there was rain. The preparing was never premature.

The conversation

The child: “Daddy God, everyone's celebrating something. I'm still waiting.”

God: “I know that ache. But I want to show you something counterintuitive.”

The child: “What is it?”

God: “'Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing.'”

The child: “How can I sing when I'm empty?”

God: “The singing isn't about what you have. It's about what I promised.”

God: “'Enlarge the place of thy tent.' Prepare before you can see it.”

The child: “Prepare when there's nothing to prepare for?”

God: “Noah built an ark before rain existed.”

The child: “Does the waiting have a purpose?”

God: “Roots go deeper where there's no fruit to distract.”

The child: “Will the emptiness end?”

God: “'More are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife.'”

The child: “Then I'll sing before I see it.”

God: “The song was always the seed.”

"Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD." Isaiah 54:1, KJV

Questions people ask