Waiting Pushes Our Limits—And That Is Part of God’s Good Design
Let’s start with something obvious: waiting is hard. You probably picked up this book because you know this to be true. Perhaps you’re living through a season where you’ve been forced to wait, and you’re learning how challenging it is. Maybe you started out strong in a time of uncertainty, but you’ve noticed a nagging sense of anxiety or frustration begin to set in. Whether we consciously know it or not, we have an internal sense of how long things should take. When this is challenged or when our expectations aren’t met, we soon discover a rising level of tension.
Waiting is usually a lot harder than we realize—or care to admit.
I think it’s safe to say that most people dislike waiting. Do you know anyone who celebrates it? “Oh good, we get to wait.” That feels weird or fake, doesn’t it? Imagine meeting a friend and asking about her weekend. What would be your immediate response if she said, “I spent three hours waiting on Saturday”? You’d probably groan, right? Waiting feels like a gap in time that’s annoying at best and aggravating at worst.
Most of us have a negative bias against it.
Our society makes it worse. In our fast-paced, instant-answer, and quick-results culture, less waiting is a benchmark for success. It’s a status symbol. Ever visited Disney World? Purchasing a FastPass affords you the privilege of skipping the line. The next time you visit the counter of a fast-food restaurant, look above the window of the drive-through. You’ll probably see a running clock capturing the time to serve each customer. Look closer and you might see a time goal written on a white board. Employees are rewarded for reducing wait times. Airports even started moving baggage claims greater distances from the terminals because customers are willing to walk farther than wait longer at an empty carousel. How many seconds are you willing to wait for a website or video to load before you click somewhere else? Our patience for the “buffering wheel” is decreasing. Efficiency and immediacy are the hallmarks of success in our society. Time is money, right?
Waiting isn’t valued in our culture.
This context is important to understand as we learn about the spiritual value of waiting. There’s a strong natural assumption, internally and externally, that delays and uncertainty are bad. But as you’ll see in the chapters that follow, waiting is commended as something valuable. Waiting is good. What’s more, waiting is commanded. Let that sink in.
The Bible commends and commands something that everything in us and everyone around us usually sees as negative.
We’ve got some work to do.
Waiting Defined
Before we go too far, let’s start with a preliminary definition of waiting in the Bible. In the Old Testament several Hebrew words are used. In the next chapter, we’ll unpack the nuances of different words. But the common thread between them is looking for something or someone with eager expectation.[1] In other words, waiting is a space to be filled. A gap emerges, and we look or hope for something to fill it. From a spiritual standpoint, God fills that gap with himself, his plans, or his promises. Ben Patterson affirms this when he writes, “To wait is to journey in faith toward the things God has promised.”[2]
When you find the word wait in the Bible, it’s important to look for the words it’s pointing toward. A few examples:
I waited patiently for the LORD. (Ps. 40:1)
My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. (Ps. 69:3)
I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope. (Ps. 130:5)
We find the same thing in the New Testament. Waiting is linked to other words and ideas connected to the activity of God:
We wait eagerly for adoption as sons. (Rom. 8:23)
. . . waiting for our blessed hope. (Titus 2:13)
. . . waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God. (2 Pet. 3:12)
Putting this together, we can see that biblical waiting is connected to what we’re looking for or where we place our trust. In this way, the gaps of life present an opportunity for faith. Sometimes the translators use “hope” for the same word translated as “wait” in other verses (see Ps. 69:6; Isa. 8:17; Jer. 14:22). That’s because waiting and hope are overlapping ideas.
To wait is to look with hope.
Andrew Murray wrote one of the best books on this subject in the 1800s. He divided waiting on God into thirty-one devotional chapters, a chapter for each day of a month. It’s a goldmine of biblical truth and time-tested counsel. You’ll find a lot of Murray quotations in my book, because I think his passion needs to be recovered. Additionally, this classic work shaped my understanding of waiting on God more than any other. Here’s a great summary of his main message: “This is the blessedness of waiting upon God, that it takes our eyes and thoughts away from ourselves, even our needs and desires, and occupies us with our God.”[3] As I said in the introduction, I’m going to point you toward this vision of waiting: living on what you know to be true about God when you don’t know what’s true about your life. When practiced correctly, it means embracing the gaps in life as an opportunity to place our hope in God.
Biblical waiting looks to the Lord.
Unfortunately, our waiting doesn’t always lead us that direction. We often fill the gaps of life with something else. This struggle with waiting shows us where we place our trust when we’re not in control.
Waiting reveals what we hope in. That can be good or bad. And it’s usually hard.
Wasted Waiting
The Bible gives us examples of wasted waiting, and it’s connected to times that are challenging. The psalmist made this summary statement:
They soon forgot his works;
they did not wait for his counsel.But they had a wanton craving in the wilderness, and put God to the test. (Ps. 106:13–14)
Notice the connection between the failure to wait and misplaced desire.
There are several biblical examples from which we can learn, but let me highlight two of the most famous. Both take place just after the exodus. They show us the difficulty with waiting and give us some hints as to why it’s so hard.
“Why Did You Bring Us Here?”
The first example is at the shore of the Red Sea. What’s remarkable about this moment is not only the lack of faith but how quickly it happened. There’s nearly a revolt against Moses’s leadership. The people faced a major spiritual crisis.
In Exodus 7–12, the Bible records the miraculous deliverance through the ten plagues. The Israelites witnessed God’s awesome power. They experienced his divine protection. God kept his promise. They saw it firsthand. But their confidence didn’t last long.
In front of them was an obstacle that appeared to be impossible—the Red Sea. Behind them was a threat that seemed certain to destroy them—the fast-approaching Egyptian army. After Pharaoh’s rage-filled change of heart, he pursued the people of God. In the distance they could probably see the dust cloud of a massive army approaching. They were trapped. It didn’t look good.
That’s when the accusations started flying:
“You’re going to get us killed!”
“What were you thinking?”
“We told you this wasn’t a good idea.”
“This was a mistake. We should go back.” (See Ex. 14:11–12)
These statements were unfair, loaded, and foolish. But I’m sure you’re familiar with them. They’re common when emotions are running high. You can probably think of a time in your life when waiting led you to say things that were rash and spiritually immature. Panic often creates sinful responses. I have a lot of examples, and I’m sure you do too.
This moment in Israel’s history became a classic example of a failure to wait.
You may know the rest of the story. God parted the Red Sea, delivering his people and destroying Pharaoh and his army. It became a signature moment of divine deliverance. But before the waters parted, Moses famously rebuked the people: “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent [or wait]” (Ex. 14:14).
I’d like for you to think about those unfair statements hurled at Moses. They were formed in the gap of living between an impassable Red Sea and certain destruction at the hand of Pharaoh. Where do you think those accusations were coming from? In other words, what’s the motivation? Try to diagnose what’s behind their verbal assaults. What kind of loss of control do you think they felt? We might not be able to sympathize with the pressure that the Israelites were under, but think about what’s behind their response. While you are pondering your answers, there’s another classic failure to consider.
“We Don’t Know What Happened to Him!”
The second major failure takes place at the base of Mount Sinai. It’s the tragic story surrounding the golden calf, an infamous moment of idolatry. Exodus 32 recounts that the people pressured Aaron into creating an idol to worship while Moses was on top of the mountain. The people gave up their golden jewelry that had been given to them as they left Egypt. They built the golden calf and worshiped it by saying, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (v. 4). It’s a bit crazy, considering the deliverance they witnessed a few weeks earlier. But it gets worse. They created a festival and “rose up to play” (v. 6), which is a euphemism for engaging in sexual immorality. The contrast between Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on the mountain while God’s people engage in detestable idolatry is stunning. It’s an egregious example of rebellion.
But it didn’t just happen. There was a failure to wait.
Exodus 32 is clear: “When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, ‘Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses . . . we do not know what has become of him’” (v. 1). God called Moses up the mountain. Forty days transpired, and his absence created a gap, an emotional space that surfaced powerful and problematic emotions. At the Red Sea, they failed to trust in God’s deliverance. But at Mount Sinai, they embraced the unfaithfulness of idolatry—“Make us gods.” They created alternative gods that gave them a sense of control. They filled the gaps in their life with fake gods.
A failure to wait can lead to spiritual decline and terrible choices.
As you consider these two examples from the Old Testament, notice the power of these gap-filling responses. They’re not small issues. This is serious stuff. Waiting pushes our limits. Horrible things are said. Regrettable actions follow.
Sometimes we don’t get waiting right because we’re not prepared for how hard it is.
Content taken from Waiting Isn't a Waste: The Surprising Comfort of Trusting God in the Uncertainties of Life by Mark Vroegop, ©2024. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
[1] John E.Hartley,“1994 קָוה,”inTheologicalWordbookoftheOldTestament,ed.R.Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke (Chicago: Moody, 1999), 791.
[2] Ben Patterson, Waiting: Finding Hope When God Seems Silent (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989), 12.
[3] Andrew Murray, Waiting on God! Daily Messages for a Month (New York: Revell, 1896), 54–55.