The Weight of Waiting
The Weight of Waiting
By: Brittany Shields
The average person spends 74% of their life waiting. That’s a made up statistic but it sure feels accurate, doesn’t it?
There nothing more frustrating and anxiety-inducing and never-ending than waiting.
I hate waiting.
I will switch lines at the grocery store if it’s even one less person than the line I’m currently in because that’s another few minutes I don’t have to wait. And then, inevitably, God’s like- ‘Nice try. The lady in front of you is going to pay in pennies so you just sit back and wait until the time I have allotted for you to check out your groceries.’
The customs line at the airport. Leaving a parking garage after a major sporting event. The face-painting line— you’ve said yes to your child’s passion for paint on their face that will have to be washed off in probably less time than it took to wait in line for it. The spinning wheel on your computer as you wait for a webpage to load. Red lights— all ten of them on your mile long drive to an appointment you’re running late to. The text back you still haven’t gotten. The number of days until your child will sleep through the night.
Waiting is hard and it’s inescapable.
Funny how God created the world that way. Where waiting is frequent.
We live in a broken world but waiting is a feature not a bug. God embedded waiting into this world because as Mark Vroegop says in his book, Waiting Isn’t a Waste (which inspired most of this blog):
“God designed waiting in the world and in redemption so that he’s central, not you or me. The frequency of waiting confronts our desire for control.”
Control. There it is. That’s what is so infuriating about waiting. You have no control over it. No amount of honking will turn the light green before it’s supposed to.
Control is what we seek.
Yet control is at the very heart of rebellion against God. We want to decide what is right and wrong. We want control over what our life is going to look like. We want what we want and we believe we can get it. Sorry God, I’m gonna take the reins on this one.
Control is opposition to the sovereign Lord.
And so every day, by default of waiting, God reminds us of our position in relation to him.
As a mom I can live under the illusion that I have control. I manage four kids and a household. What they eat and what clothes they have and what they need in their backpack and when they can have screen time and where we’re going to spend our time that week. There’s a lot to feel like I have control over. But in reality, it’s not much. Trying to get my kids to eat food has been one monstrous lesson in lack of control.
If we think we’re in control of our lives, not only are we openly rebelling against God, we’re deluded. Because ultimately we are at the mercy of the all-powerful Creator God and no amount of planning can change that.
Coming to that realization shouldn’t resign us to fatalistic pessimism where we throw up our hands and say ‘What’s the point?’
No, if control is rebellion then the opposite is surrender. Not where we move to the backseat of a self-driving car with nothing to do but twiddle our thumbs until we arrive. Surrender is not passive; it’s a call to action.
We submit to God as King ready to answer his call.
J.I. Packer says surrender is “reporting for duty.” It’s no longer trying to be king but showing up to carry out the King’s orders. (Keep in Step with the Spirit)
One thing the King has ordered is waiting.
“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” - Psalm 27:14
"Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” Psalm 37:7
He calls us to wait.
We can ‘joke’ about the daily waits like lines and lights, but there are heavier things that require waiting that really challenge our trust in God.
Waiting on a medical diagnosis. For a positive pregnancy test so you can finally be a mom. For the right person to marry. For a loved one to kick an addiction. For a child or parent to return to the faith. For grief to turn to joy. For paperwork to clear so you can finally adopt your child into your family. For a deployed spouse or friend to come home. For suffering and pain to go away. For relational animosity to heal. For oppression and abuse to end. For the darkness to lift.
Sometimes the weight of waiting feels unbearable.
When we are in what feels like the valley of the shadow of death— we need our waiting to mean something. And it can. It does.
If he commands us to wait then it must mean something. What we do while we’re waiting must be important.
Vroegop reminds us that if waiting is commanded then waiting is an act of obedience. And that already gives it more meaning.
So what do we do when the waiting feels heavy?
Me? Sometimes I complain. I shake my fists. I run myself in anxious circles. I doubt. I find myself careening down a slope of depression and hopelessness. My frustration turns into bitterness and resentment. I feel stagnant and stuck. I’m like a child whining about being tired and hungry and ‘I don’t want to do this anymore’.
When I do this, I have wasted the waiting. I have become disobedient, rejecting the place God has called me to.
Waiting isn’t for whining. That sounds harsh, but I think sometimes we need a hard word because we’re prone to whining. We’re prone to call on God for what we think will make us happy without regard for what he’s up to.
Waiting is not about what is happening to us but about what could be happening in us.
Waiting is an opportunity to express faith.
The main thesis of Vroegop’s book can be summarized by this statement:
“Waiting on God is living on what I know to be true about God when I don’t know what’s true about my life.”
If we utilize our times of waiting to rehearse what is true about God, it should lead to transformation and peace.
Vroegop also wrote the book Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, and he spends one chapter looking at Lamentations 3. This is the passage where we get the popular verse:
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
This verse reminds me of ‘Be still and know that I am God’ (which I wrote about HERE) where we tend to picture nice, pretty, calming scenes. Yet in both Scriptures, these sentiments are said during dark times.
In Lamentations Jeremiah is looking at a landscape of destruction and suffering; Jerusalem has been destroyed. Yet, he offers us a biblical way to lament when we are waiting for God to come through. Even though Jeremiah is raw and real in his pain during this entire chapter, he still anchors himself to what is true about God.
Before that famous verse, Jeremiah says, “Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this”
Vroegop looks at this change from Jeremiah lamenting his affliction to speaking of the Lord’s faithfulness and says “hope springs from truth rehearsed.”
Jeremiah continues on:
“The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth… For the Lord will not cast off forever, for, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men… Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord! Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven… You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life.”
It is good to wait and seek the Lord. The burden of waiting is a yoke of redemption. And we already know about this yoke:
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:29-30
So how do we not waste our waiting?
We FAST. This is the acronym Vroegop devised to redirect our thoughts. Instead of whining we worship.
We Focus on the Lord. Looking not at our problem, but to the Problem-Solver. I love the analogy he uses of stepping out of cold darkness into the warmth of the sun and looking up, letting that warmth and light wash over us.
We Adore who God is by rehearsing what we know to be true about him, meditating on his Word and praising him for all he is and all he has done.
We are actively Seeking God’s help. We show up instead of sitting down. We don’t control our circumstances, so we talk to the one who does, acknowledging our submission to his will, knowing that he is at work in us and through us for his glory.
These lead us to Trust God in our waiting. The fear and anxiety that often come with waiting are evidence of our lack of trust. Waiting won’t seem so terrible when we persevere with trust because we know that God, who is in control, loves us and cares for us. He is good.
Waiting is good because God is good and he puts us there for good reasons. When we know what is true about God, we believe this.
“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Phillippians 1:6
I’ve told my kids: so much of life is waiting so you better get good at it.
It’s true. Waiting is not optional or rare or easy, but when we embrace it and expect it, ready to FAST, we experience growth and peace.
“We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:3-5
Anxiety and fear and anger— the emotional soup we so often feed on when we wait— has no place at the Lord’s table. But taste and see that the Lord is good. (Psalm 34:8)
Relinquish control to our sovereign Savior and trust that waiting isn’t a waste. The weight of waiting is strengthening our faith muscles to endure the path the King has called us to walk in.
March on, soldier.
“Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but 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.”