Hope in the delay
A delay can wear your hope thin, until you are still technically waiting but no longer expecting anything. Scripture keeps hope and waiting tied together: to wait for God is to hope for what you cannot yet see, and to keep expecting Him to act. That hope is not wishful thinking, it rests on God's character and His promises, which do not expire because an answer is slow. Look to the God of your salvation, and say it back to yourself when the waiting gets heavy. Tell Him plainly what you are still hoping for, and ask Him to keep your expectation alive in the gap between the prayer and the answer.
But as for me, I will look unto Jehovah; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.
Micah 7:7 · ASVMicah turns from the trouble around him to look toward God and wait, certain he will be heard. Hope here is portrayed as a posture of looking toward the God of salvation.
But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
Romans 8:25 · ASVPaul defines hope as waiting with patience for what is not yet visible. The not-seeing is part of hope, not the end of it.
And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in thee.
Psalm 39:7 · ASVDavid asks what he is waiting for and answers his own question: his hope is in God. The verse traces the object of his waiting back to God Himself.
Let thy lovingkindness, O Jehovah, be upon us, according as we have hoped in thee.
Psalm 33:22 · ASVThe psalm asks for God's steadfast love to match the hope placed in Him. Hope reaches toward a God whose love is ready to meet it.