Waiting isn't a waste
Book Review (Mark Vroegop)
Vroegop wrote a great book on lament, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, which I really enjoyed, and so I thought this newish release was worth a read too. It's not a great book, but it is a good book. It's pretty conversational, not too heavy, you can get through it quickly, and it tackles an interesting topic. If I wanted to distinguish the two books, let me put it this way: lament is talking to God and trusting him when things aren't right, until things get right; waiting is a broader category of how to keep going, talking and trusting, when we haven't got what we expect (yet).
Vroegop defines it like this: "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".
And then he unpacks this in six straightforward chapters, talking through why waiting is hard, the fact that waiting is actually very common (in life and in the Scriptures), that it is biblical - i.e. that the Bible is not just full of waiting, but teaches us how to wait well; that it's slow, commanded, and relational.
One of the things that struck me in this book is that the object of waiting in the Bible is just so often 'the Lord'. People wait on the Lord. Even when we're waiting on other things or situations or people, what we're called to do is wait on God. It's that God-oriented dependence that is part of reframing our waiting.
I found it humorous that Vroegop disavows that he's a fan of acronyms, since his lament book has one (TCAT), and this one has one too: FAST. This is his distilled formula for what to do when you're waiting. It's Focus (on God rather than circumstances), Adore ("worshipfully rehearse what you know to be true about God"), Seek (God's help through prayer), and Trust (i.e. continually trust and rest in God and his character). Some of this does sound like his lament book, doesn't it? But it's in a different key. A less gloomy one. And there's overlap, and that's very reasonable.
Life is full of waiting, and so we may as well learn to wait well. Waiting so often is forced upon us, we have no choice! But what we do have a choice about is how we wait. And whom we wait on. We can use our waiting to wait upon the Lord, to look to him, trust in him, pray to him, or we can focus on the waiting or the object of our waiting, which isn't going to be particularly healthy, and also isn't likely to hasten the day of fulfilment either.
There are certainly things I'm waiting on, with total uncertainty about what will eventuate. I am not sure I find waiting especially difficult, compared to the next person. In one sense, I can be an incredibly patient person at times (maybe too patient at times!). But in some of these circumstances I find myself saying, "what else can I do except wait!" And yet waiting well is something we all need. To see waiting as part of spiritual growth and character development. It deepens our dependence on God, and that is always for the good.
I think Vroegop has done a nice little job in turning attention on a topic we probably don't talk about much, and bringing a bunch of biblical data together in a helpful way. He also makes liberal use of Andrew Murray, which is very good (there's a lot to be said for unearthing old and forgotten writings and making them new and known again). The chapter on collective waiting is an encouraging reminder that we don't wait alone, but in community, and so challenges us both to wait together for the Lord's work, and also to wait with others on individual things. There's a good section here on compassion: recognising that waiting is hard for others, and that acknowledging this and caring for people who are waiting with "the deep heartache of unfulfilled longings and unrelenting disappointment", that's an important work for us to do.
