Waiting Isn't a Waste E-Book

Mark Vroegop

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 163

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Exploring 6 Characteristics of Waiting to Prompt Wisdom from God and Gain Invaluable Peace Throughout our lives, we experience countless periods of waiting. Some moments are mere nuisances—others are daunting seasons filled with intense worry and doubt. We grow impatient by immovable traffic or crave an impending answer to a medical condition. Whatever our current circumstances, our innate response is to take action rather than stay still. In Waiting Isn't a Waste, author Mark Vroegop calls believers to resist the human urge for control and lean on Christ for comfort while we wait for the uncertainties of life to unfold. Vroegop explores what it means to wait on God through 6 important characteristics—waiting is hard, common, biblical, slow, commanded, and relational. This book not only teaches readers how to wait on God but inspires them to embrace waiting—for it prompts wisdom from God and brings invaluable peace to the present.  - Written for Christians in Seasons of Waiting: Those struggling with anxiety, discouragement, or weariness as they wait - Explores 6 Characteristics of Waiting: Waiting is hard, common, biblical, slow, commanded, and relational  - Written by Mark Vroegop: Author of Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, which was named the ECPA 2020 Christian Book of the Year

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“Years ago a friend said to me, ‘The only thing worse than waiting on the Lord is wishing you had.’ Most of us, in varying degrees, don’t like to wait. But all of us will wait, and we will wait on God. His timetable doesn’t always sync with ours. What do we do while we wait? Mark Vroegop teaches us that waiting on God is living on what we know to be true about God when we don’t know what is true about our life. Thank you, Mark, for sharing with us how and why to wait and doing so in such a clear, biblical, transferable way. What a treasure!”

Crawford W. Lorritts Jr., speaker; radio host; author; Founder and President, Beyond Our Generation

“Waiting Isn’t a Waste is full of timely and practical encouragement for every reader. Instead of trying to avoid waiting at all costs, this book will help you embrace it as a good gift from God.”

Ruth Chou Simons,Wall Street Journal bestselling author; artist; Founder, GraceLaced

“Waiting is one of the most difficult parts of life, yet also the most common. Most of life involves waiting. The speed of modern life tempts us to view all waiting as a waste. Mark Vroegop helps us develop a biblical framework for waiting on God, inviting us to see times of waiting as opportunities for worship and growth. Viewed rightly, waiting provides pathways to contentment and calmness—a healthy, nonpressured embracing of life as God intended it. This timely, readable book will be edifying to everyone who reads it.”

Gavin Ortlund, President, Truth Unites; Theologian-in-Residence, Immanuel Church, Nashville, Tennessee

“Waiting fills the gap between our current reality and our unrealized expectations. While we may feel stuck, forgotten, disappointed, and confused, Mark Vroegop’s new book Waiting Isn’t a Waste faithfully reminds us that God is purposefully at work in transformative ways. This book is a helpful and needed encouragement to live in the truth of what we know about God when we don’t understand his plan for our lives.”

Melissa B. Kruger, author; Vice President of Discipleship Programming, The Gospel Coalition

“I had no idea the Bible said so much about waiting. As someone with a terrible reputation for being impatient, this is not surprising. This book is a godsend to me and others in our day. How desperately we need to hear the biblical and practical wisdom it contains.”

Daniel L. Akin, President, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

“This is an important book for all of us who think that waiting is unproductive and annoying. Whether in the doctor’s waiting room or at a red light or, worse yet, in a life crisis that makes us vulnerable to the dark riders of fear, anxiety, and doubt, waiting is rarely thought of as a friend. Thankfully, Mark Vroegop has given us a fresh biblical perspective that radically changes our view of waiting. With practical steps forged through his own experience, Vroegop leads us into a new appreciation for the ‘waits’ of life as we place our trust in our God who is at work for our good and his glory when our lives seem stuck on pause.”

Joe Stowell, Bible teacher; special assistant to the President, Moody Bible Institute

“It is hard to think of a less requested yet more urgently needed project than a rehabilitation of our practical theology of waiting. Packed with insight into the intersection of waiting and hope, waiting and intentionality, waiting and the trustworthiness of God, waiting and building enduring Christian community, this book is laden with distillations of Scripture that I sincerely pray will change how you and I live every day for the rest of our lives.”

J. Alasdair Groves, Executive Director, Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation; coauthor, Untangling Emotions

“I stink at waiting. I really do. In recent days, I have been reminded of this. This is why I was thankful to know this rare, timely book had been written. Waiting Isn’t a Waste was exactly what I needed to press against my impatience and remind me how much waiting is a part of God’s good plan for all of us. Everything Mark Vroegop writes is clear, biblical, practical, and thoughtful, and this book is no exception. Whether you are a pastor, church member, or simply someone looking for hope in the waiting, this book is definitely for you. I know of nothing like it.”

Brian Croft, Executive Director, Practical Shepherding

“With Mark Vroegop as your guide, learning to wait can be one of the greatest journeys you will embark on. He invites us to see what we experience as annoyances and long seasons of anxiety as opportunities to discover who God is and his tender care of us. Vroegop does not ask us to ignore the challenges of waiting or trivialize the anxiety we feel. Instead, Waiting Isn’t a Waste encourages us to embrace waiting because when we do, we will find ourselves on the path to flourishing.”

Darby Strickland, Faculty and Counselor, Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation; author, Is It Abuse?

“In this personal and profound volume, Mark Vroegop points us toward redemption in the waiting of life. With practical advice, theological clarity, and personal warmth, Vroegop presents waiting as a transformational discipline of the Christian life, something that brings peace into our lives through a deeper connection to the Lord. For our generation that is always impatient and ruthlessly driven, this book is a manifesto for the countercultural calling of authentic Christian discipleship.”

D. Michael Lindsay, President, Taylor University

Waiting Isn’t a Waste

Waiting Isn’t a Waste

The Surprising Comfort of Trusting God in the Uncertainties of Life

Mark Vroegop

Foreword by Jen Wilkin

Waiting Isn’t a Waste: The Surprising Comfort of Trusting God in the Uncertainties of Life

© 2024 by Mark Vroegop

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Published in association with the literary agency of Wolgemuth & Wilson.

Cover design: Faceout Studio, Tim Green

First printing 2024

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.

Scripture quotations marked MSG are from The Message, copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-9097-9 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-9099-3 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-9098-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Vroegop, Mark, 1971– author.

Title: Waiting isn’t a waste : the surprising comfort of trusting God in the uncertainties of life / Mark Vroegop.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, [2024] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023039211 (print) | LCCN 2023039212 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433590979 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433590986 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433590993 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Trust in God—Christianity. | Waiting (Philosophy)

Classification: LCC BV4637 .V76 2024 (print) | LCC BV4637 (ebook) | DDC 234/.2—dc23/eng/20231229 

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023039211

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023039212

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2024-08-26 03:28:20 PM

To Dale Shaw:

“Those who wait upon God get fresh strength. . . .

They run and don’t get tired,

They walk and don’t lag behind.”

Isaiah 40:31 (MSG)

Thanks for waiting!

Contents

  Foreword by Jen Wilkin

  Introduction: Wasting Our Waiting

 1  Honestly: Waiting Is Hard

 2  Frequently: Waiting Is Common

 3  Thoughtfully: Waiting Is Biblical

 4  Patiently: Waiting Is Slow

 5  Intentionally: Waiting Is Commanded

 6  Collectively: Waiting Is Relational

  Conclusion: Embracing Our Waiting

  Acknowledgments

  Appendix 1: The Lord Is . . .

  Appendix 2: Lord, You Are . . .

  Appendix 3: Mapping God’s Faithfulness

  Appendix 4: Waiting in the Psalms

  Bibliography

  General Index

  Scripture Index

Foreword

As I write these words, I am waiting. I would imagine you are too. I’m waiting for a child to return from a very long stay overseas, for a friend to get her pathology reports, for a family member to come to faith, and for several forms of grief to subside. I’m also waiting for a repairman who is three days late. And I’m waiting for the heat of an infernal Texas summer to finally give way to the first cold front of fall. I’m experiencing varying levels of success with each of these waits, and not all of my responses to them would make me a candidate for sainthood.

We owe an immeasurable debt to the great theologian Tom Petty for saying what we all feel: the waiting is the hardest part.1 If ever a truer lyric were set to music, I am unaware of it. And we’re not good at it. In fact, we are worse at it than we were when Petty’s song was racing up the charts in 1981. Research shows that the average attention span has shrunk from twelve seconds in the year 2000 to eight seconds in 2015. This means our attention span is now officially shorter than that of a goldfish by a full second.2

We live in a culture of instant gratification, where streaming services deliver our entertainment in seconds, Amazon delivers our packages the same day, and Google answers our questions instantly. Our commute is kept as wait-free as possible by apps that route and reroute according to traffic patterns. And we never endure the nerve-wracking wait of getting lost on the way to our destination. In other words, we live in a culture that doesn’t just cater to goldfish; it produces them. Waiting is seen as an evil to eliminate instead of as a virtue to cultivate. And because waiting is seen as the enemy, our anger and frustration flare when our expected timetables are not met.

But here is good news for the Christ follower: if you’ve been looking for a simple way to shine like a star in a crooked generation, cultivate the virtue of patience in waiting. Admittedly, that is much easier said than done. It’s one thing to wait for your coffee drink in a drive-through, and it’s quite another to wait for an illness to resolve or a long-overdue apology to be spoken. The sheer number of hard waits we will face in our lifetimes presents both the challenge and the opportunity of growing in virtue, of growing in Christlikeness.

Impatience is all well and good for the unbeliever, but the Christian faith is, by definition, one of delayed gratification. The children of God are, and always have been, called upon to wait. We wait for God’s kingdom to come in fullness, but our waiting is distinctly different from that of the unbeliever. No white-knuckled, jaw-clenched waiting will do for those whose hope is anchored in the bedrock of the finished work of Christ. The enthusiastic expression “I can’t wait!” is captured in the maranatha cry of Revelation 22:20, but heaven help us if the citizens of the kingdom of heaven quite literally cannot wait during this life. Patience is the fourth virtue listed in the fruit of the Spirit. If we are progressively being sanctified, we should expect to see it grow in our lives.

That’s why the book you are holding matters. Mark Vroegop wants to help you to wait like a Christian. He wants to sit with you in your waiting and show you how to endure by practicing time-tested and biblical disciplines. But more than that, he wants you to know that waiting is itself a help. We have much to learn from plotlines that are slow to resolve, from dissonance that settles in like dense fog, from circumstances that take longer than we expect and ask more than we can bear. Mark’s voice is the voice of a friend and fellow sojourner, calling us to wait well.

The famous seventeenth-century English poet and statesman John Milton lost his sight at the age of forty-two. A man of deep faith and action, he wrestled with his new limit and with the permanent losses it marked. In the first seasons of his blindness, he wrote Sonnet 19, reflecting on his physical inability to serve God as he had, having taken up the yoke of darkness. He notes, “[those] who best bear his mild yoke, they serve him best.” He recognizes that his blindness might yet have purpose, with his heart-stopping final line: “They also serve who only stand and wait.” Ten years later, born from the darkness of waiting, he would publish his greatest work, Paradise Lost.

Waiting does not preclude serving the Lord. It just reshapes it. May you find in these pages, as I have, strength and wisdom for the waitings you are ordained to wait. Be they great or small, may God be glorified in your fruitful patience and steadfastness.

Jen Wilkin

1.  Tom Petty, “The Waiting,” track 1, Hard Promises (Universal City, CA: Backstreet, 1981).

2.  John Stevens, “Decreasing Attention Spans and Your Website, Social Media Strategy,” Adweek, June 7, 2016, https://adweek.com.

Introduction

Wasting Our Waiting

They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not be weary;

they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:31

This book is about the “gaps of life” and how the Bible calls us to fill the void of uncertainty by waiting on God.

That’s not a new concept.

Waiting on God is an ancient idea found throughout the Bible. However, it’s easy to ignore or dismiss. We might be tempted to write off waiting on God as “old school” or as a spiritual theme relegated to an era of history where Christians seemed a bit too serious. What’s more, most of us don’t enjoy waiting for anything. As a result, we tend to view the gaps of life as something—at best—to be tolerated. Add some stress or pain or time into the mix, and you probably know what happens. Rather than worshiping our way through uncertainty and experiencing peace, our tendency is to fill the gaps of life with fear, anxiety, frustration, or anger.

For most of us, waiting feels like a waste.

I’ve been there. I am there.

That’s why I’ve written this book.

Confessions of an Impatient Multitasker

Some books are written out of personal expertise. Not this one! I wrote this book because I see a need in myself and in those around me. In full disclosure, not only am I terrible at waiting, but it seems I have a natural bias against it. “Doesn’t everyone?” you might ask. That’s probably true at some level. But when I say I’m bad at waiting, I mean it. It’s been a problem for a long time.

Let’s start with my last name. Good luck trying to pronounce it, although it’s much easier than you’d think. Vroegop is Dutch. What you probably don’t know is that most Dutch last names mean something practical. That’s because in the 1800s Napoleon required my forefathers to select a last name. Other families chose names associated with their work: Shoemaker (shoe maker), Bakker (baker), or Meijer (steward). Others identified their kin by a location: Vander Meer (from the lake), Boogaard (the orchard), or Vander Molen (from the mill). What about my last name? Vroegop literally means “early up.” To this day it makes me smirk. You see, when my great-great-great-grandparents considered what we would name ourselves, they made a statement about how early we get out of bed. They could have chosen napper, slow, Sabbath keeper, or loves sleep. Nope. My last name and its meaning creates an identity: “Mark Early Up.” As a child, I remember my family valuing rising early, being productive, and personal discipline. My mom used to say, “Work hard. Play hard.” This mindset is part of who I am.

Not waiting is literally in my last name.

My personality doesn’t help either. I’m decidedly pro-action. I love to work and accomplish things. I like to do things in the right way and fix what’s broken. If you are into personality tests, you might not be surprised to learn that I have the Activator talent on Strengths Finder, and I’m probably an Enneagram 1. Based upon the DISC test, I like to see results. A great day off for me is a to-do list with lots of completed tasks. Getting things done energizes me, and I’ve read a lot of books about productivity. When I attended a Franklin Planner seminar thirty years ago, I was captivated with making the best use of “discretionary time.” In my first professional job, I’ll never forget when a vice president at a Christian college commended me for bringing work to do while I waited for an appointment with him to begin. I’m pretty sure that sitting quietly, daydreaming, or engaging his secretary in small talk would not have been recognized. I learned quickly that multitasking and working hard were rewarded. They made me feel affirmed.

Unfortunately, pastoral ministry and theological education made my aversion for waiting worse. I gravitated toward verses about life stewardship (“To whom much was given, of him much will be required,” Luke 12:48) and redeeming the time (“ . . . making the best use of the time, because the days are evil,” Eph. 5:16). The endless demands of ministry created a spiritualized “fifth gear” in my drive. When I learned that a respected leader or a Puritan slept only four hours a day, I found another justification for passionate activity. Upon reading Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper, I deeply resonated with the theological vision of living passionately for the glory of God. I was determined not to waste my life.

But in the process of not wasting my life, I wasted something else: my waiting.

The last few years surfaced a deep deficiency in how I think about and practice waiting on God. The global pandemic that we thought would last a few months dragged on for two years. Cultural divisions and church controversies created countless no-win decisions. I can’t remember a time when I was more aware of the massive gaps in life. I felt powerless all the time. When my old patterns of overworking, overthinking, and overplanning didn’t work, I found myself filling this canyon of uncertainty with anxiety, fear, and frustration. While I knew how to lament the grief I felt, I didn’t know how to wait on the Lord with this massive tension.

I needed to stop wasting my waiting.

I still do.

The Aim of This Book