One of the ways we waste our waiting is not reckoning with how hard it is and why that’s the case. Consider some examples of waiting in your own life. Let’s see if we can unpack when it’s hard so we can understand why.
Uncertainty
Waiting usually involves some level of uncertainty, and that’s uncomfortable. It’s challenging to move forward when you don’t know what’s going on or when information is not available. Without data or explanation, problems are hard to prevent or manage. That can feel threatening because information creates solutions. It’s important to understand, however, that our desire to possess knowledge is more than a passion for learning. You’ve probably heard that “knowledge is power.” It’s true. Knowing what is happening is one of the many ways we try to bring order to our lives.
Previous generations were more familiar with uncertainty. We have faster technologies in our pockets than our grandparents could have ever dreamed. All it takes is a quick internet search, and we can have the answers to most of our questions. Social media gives us a constant update on the lives of our friends. Want to know what’s happening around the world? We’re only a click or swipe away from instant access to breaking news. All of this creates an unfamiliarity and discomfort with uncertainty.
Waiting for information creates a painful gap. It’s hard because understanding what is happening gives us a sense of control.
Uncertainty reveals vulnerability.
Delays
Waiting on the timing of something is also hard. This is probably one of the first examples that people give when talking about waiting. They express audible groans with things like traffic jams, being put on hold, doctor’s appointments, airport layovers, or visiting the department of motor vehicles. Our internal clock begins to tick, and we wrestle with why something is taking so long. Add into the mix a slow teller, a demanding customer, or someone trying to cut in line, and it’s quite surprising what kind of negative and sinful emotions emerge.
Important and serious moments in life often involve delays, and it isn’t easy. Sometimes it’s downright scary. I’ve been a pastor long enough to see the deep tension that develops as people are waiting for a job offer, the sale of a home, college admissions, medical tests, an adoption ruling, or hearing from an estranged family member. These life-altering scenarios usually involve waiting, and it’s a battle not to fill the time gap with impatience or fear.
Daily life involves challenging delays.
Disappointment
It’s hard to wait when good desires go unfulfilled. There’s a unique internal battle when you are waiting for something important, yet you feel the looming clouds of disappointment starting to form. I have in mind a young man or woman who desires the lifelong companionship of marriage or a couple struggling with infertility after years of challenges. There are parents tearfully waiting for their grown children to come back to a relationship with Jesus, and family members who desperately want to see a loved one freed from an addiction because of the havoc it’s creating.
This kind of waiting doesn’t merely involve information or time. It’s connected to dreams and hopes. Often they’re honorable desires, and that can make waiting even more challenging. In other words, the fact that it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
However, this can quickly devolve. Wrestling with unfulfilled desires or unmet expectations can be deeply painful—even jarring. You might ask, “Why would God make me wait for something that’s good?” Betsy Childs Howard writes, “It’s much easier to stop hoping than it is to have your dream deferred again and again.” How true. For some, this can lead to hopelessness.
Waiting is hard when you’ve been disappointed.
Pain
It’s uncomfortable to wait, and that’s especially true when you’re in pain. This chapter began with a verse from Psalm 69. I hope you didn’t miss the phrase “My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God” (v. 3). David expresses a deep weariness as he cries out to God while being overwhelmed, slandered, rejected, and mocked. In verse 29 he says, “I am afflicted and in pain.” The background isn’t entirely clear, but it seems that he’s waiting for vindication while being hurt by people. It’s hard to wait when you’re being attacked.
There are other kinds of pain as well. Many Christians know the challenges related to an illness, a disability, or an ongoing health issue. While medical treatments provide much more relief and healing than in any previous generation, there are still many people waiting for healing. Others are familiar with the slow demise of a loved one. Whether it’s the decline with a disease like Alzheimer’s or the bedside vigil of hospice care, waiting with a loved one in pain can be heartbreaking. Maybe your pain is related to a relationship conflict, a divorce, a wayward child, or the death of someone close to you.
Waiting for healing—physical and emotional—is hard.
Powerlessness
This is not an exhaustive list, and I’ll conclude with the most familiar and applicable category. Waiting is hard when we feel powerless. The gaps of life are really moments with a control vacuum. It might be better to say that waiting is hard because we feel powerless.
Therefore, you could easily expand my list into any area where you’ve lost the kind of control that you want. Information, timing, expectations, and comfort are often able to be managed. When they’re not at our disposal, a gap is created, and we have to wait. Can you think of any areas I’ve not listed? Where do you experience a deep need for control? Consider something that, if missing in your life, creates a significant struggle.
Underneath our disdain for waiting is our longing for control.
Let me be clear on something. That desire isn’t fundamentally sinful. Nor is it necessarily wrong if waiting is hard. As we’ll see in the coming chapters, gaps in life are part of God’s design for the world. They’re a common element of our human experience for good reason. Imagine what you’d be like if you didn’t have to wait for anything!
We need to wrestle with these questions: When and why is waiting hard?
An Opportunity
Diagnosing when waiting is hard helps us not to waste it. There’s an opportunity presented to us that isn’t easy, but it’s good. And the challenge we experience could be seen as part of the normal Christian life. “The tension you feel as you try to simultaneously hope in heaven while living wholeheartedly in this life isn’t necessarily an indicator of sinful discontentment. It may simply be evidence that you are a citizen of heaven living on earth.”
The fact that waiting is hard doesn’t mean you’ve already failed.
The simple acknowledgment that it isn’t easy, examining why, and then looking to God is the first step of learning how to wait.
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.