There is a season that most believers misread. A season when everything seems to be standing still — or worse, falling apart. When doors close instead of open. When the vision God gave you feels further away, not closer. When you feel like you're being emptied instead of filled. Most people in this season assume they've missed God, gotten off track, or are being disciplined. But often, what's happening is something entirely different — God is preparing you for something significant, and preparation rarely feels like progress.
Joseph spent years in a pit and a prison before he reached the palace. David was anointed king and then sent back to tend sheep before his throne was established. Moses spent forty years in the desert being prepared for forty years of leadership. The preparation season is real — and it has recognizable signs. Here are ten of them.
Relationships that seemed solid are fading. Opportunities that looked promising are falling through. Even things you worked hard to build are coming apart. This feels like loss — but it is often pruning. Jesus said in John 15 that the Father prunes every branch that bears fruit, so that it bears more fruit. Stripping away is not punishment — it is preparation. God is removing what cannot come with you into the next season.
Not just a passing feeling — a genuine, growing restlessness. A dissatisfaction with where you are spiritually. A pull toward prayer, Scripture, and seeking God's face that feels deeper than anything before it. God plants holy hunger in His people before He moves. If you can't get enough of His presence and can't explain why, it may be because He is drawing you close in preparation for what He is about to release through you.
"God never wastes a season. What feels like delay is often the most crucial part of the preparation — because He is building in you what cannot be faked in the moment."
If God has called you to lead, you are being tested in obedience. If He has called you to teach, you are being tested in whether you will live what you say. If He has called you to serve, you are being tested in whether you will serve without recognition. The test and the calling are always connected. God doesn't give you a platform before He tests your character in private. What He's developing in you in secret is what will sustain what He has for you in public.
A job that didn't come through. A relationship that ended. A plan that collapsed. A door you pushed on that wouldn't budge. When God closes a door, it doesn't feel like protection — it feels like rejection. But often the doors He closes are protecting you from paths that would delay or derail what He has planned for you. The closed doors are as purposeful as the open ones.
Humility is a prerequisite for significant assignment. God cannot entrust platforms, influence, or callings to people who are still full of themselves — not because He is stingy, but because pride destroys what God builds. The humbling seasons — the ones where your reputation takes a hit, where you're overlooked, where you have to start over — are often God doing in you what needs to be done before He can trust you with what He wants to do through you.
God tests faithfulness in the small things before He entrusts the large ones. If He's been asking you to do something small — a daily discipline, a private act of obedience, a quiet step of faith — and you've been faithful in it, that is a sign of preparation. Luke 16:10 says that whoever is faithful in a very little thing is also faithful in much. The small acts of obedience you're practicing right now are the foundation He's laying for what's ahead.
The trials, pain, and seasons of waiting you've walked through are producing something in you — empathy. A deeper capacity to understand what others are going through. A tenderness toward people who are suffering that you didn't have before your own suffering. God often prepares His people for a calling by first taking them through the very experiences that will qualify them to speak into other people's lives with authority and genuine understanding.
Despite the silence, despite the closed doors, despite the waiting — the thing God put in your heart years ago keeps coming back. Clearer each time. More specific. More compelling. Visions from God don't fade the way human ambitions do. If something keeps returning to your spirit — a calling, a ministry, a business, a purpose — and it won't let you go no matter how many years pass, it may be because God planted it there and He is not finished with it.
Joseph's time in prison wasn't wasted — it was where he built the skill and reputation that caught Pharaoh's attention. Your current season — however frustrating it feels — may be positioning you exactly where you need to be when the right door opens. The connections you're making, the skills you're developing, the character being forged in you right now are not accidental. God is a sovereign God who positions His people with precision.
There is a stirring in your spirit that you cannot quite name. A sense of holy anticipation. A feeling that the season you're in is ending and something new is on the horizon. Pay attention to that. God speaks to our spirits before He moves in our circumstances. That quiet, persistent sense that something is coming may not be wishful thinking — it may be the Holy Spirit preparing you for what He is about to release.
A Prayer for the Preparation Season
Lord, I trust You with this season — even the parts I don't understand. I believe that what feels like waiting is not wasted, and what feels like stripping away is not punishment. You are preparing me, and I submit to that process.
Give me the grace to be faithful in the small things. Give me the humility to let go of what You're asking me to release. Give me eyes to see what You're building, even when I can't see the blueprint. And when the time comes — when the door You've been preparing swings open — let me walk through it ready.
You have a plan. It is good. And I am exactly where I need to be. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Reflect on This
- How many of these 10 signs are currently present in your life — and what does that tell you about what God may be doing right now?
- Is there something God has been asking you to be faithful in privately, in the unseen — and how are you responding to that invitation?