★★★★★ 5
Excellent treatment on the subject of waiting on the Lord
Format: Paperback
Waiting Isn’t a Waste, The Surprising Comfort of Trusting God in the Uncertainties of Life
by Mark Vroegrop (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2024), 135 pp. paper, $13.49
Vroegrop’s book Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy was popular partly due to its subject matter: grief and suffering. Now Vroegrop, lead pastor of College Park Church in Indianapolis, is addressing another hot subject—waiting. It is no wonder that it has drawn the attention of Christianity Today, which awarded it one of the best books for 2024. Everyone struggles with waiting. The author writes, “This book is about the ‘gaps of life’ and how the Bible calls us to fill the void of uncertainty by waiting on God” (p. 1). We tend to fill the gaps with fear, anxiety, frustration, or anger (pp. 2, 16, 33-36); Scripture calls us to fill them with hope and trust in God. The stated aim is “to help us take steps in learning to wait” (p. 5), and the goal is to unpack this definition: “Waiting on God when I don’t know what’s true about my life” (p. 5). The book has six subjects, each of which has a chapter devoted to these topics:
• Honestly: waiting is hard
• Frequently: waiting is common
• Thoughtfully: waiting is biblical
• Patiently: waiting is slow
• Intentionally: waiting is commanded
• Collectively: waiting is relational (p. 6)
Waiting is loaded with good quotes such as this one from Ben Patterson: “To wait is to journey in faith toward the things God has promised” (p. 11). Andrew Murray and his devotional classic Waiting on God are liberally quoted. One example: “This is the blessing 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” (pp. 12-13). The author is quotable as well. Three excellent statements are as follows:
When my desire for control gets the best of me, I frequently turn to three unhelpful and sinful responses: anger, anxiety, and apathy (p. 33).
Waiting requires living by what I know to be true about God when I don’t know what’s true about my life (p. 39).
Rather, my typical response is annoyance at best and anger at worst. You too? Understanding the biblical connection between wait and hope invites us to shift our focus from what’s not true about our lives to what is true about God. In other words, waiting biblically is seeing seasons of delay as opportunities to hope in God (p. 42).
Vroegop often turns to the Psalms for insight and direction, noting that there are 14 psalms that celebrate waiting (p. 30). From Psalm 25 and 27 he draws a four-fold strategy for waiting, forming the anacronym FAST:
Focus: live with a God-centered perspective (Psalm 25:3).
Adore: worshipfully rehearse what you know to be true (Psalm 27:1)
Seek: request God’s help (Psalm 25:16, 17, 18, 20)
Trust: “embracing by faith the contentment and spirited rest that comes from knowing God can be trusted” (Psalm 27:13-14). Trusting is a choice (pp. 75-76).
Vroegop reminds his readers that while we are waiting, the Lord may intervene in ways that are amazing: “I’ve seen problems solved, solutions surface, people convicted, and conflict resolved” (pp. 109-110). These past interventions give us hope for present ‘gaps’” (p. 66).
I was disappointed with the author’s passing references to the Message paraphrase, the Enneagram (p. 3), lighting of candles (p. 69), and Dallas Willard (p. 79). But these slights do not tarnish the excellent treatment on the subject of waiting on the Lord.
Reviewed by Gary E. Gilley, Southern View Chapel
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Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2025
