God Is Working While You’re Waiting

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Mark Vroegop
Bible actually says no, like the posture of a Christian is, by definition right now, to be waiting on the Lord and waiting for his return. Like everything about what it means to be a follower of Jesus involves some kind of waiting. I’m waiting for the process of sanctification. I’m waiting for the return of Jesus. I’m waiting for the answers to the prayer requests that I’ve talked to the Lord about. And so in that respect, waiting is something that we actively participate in.

Collin Hansen
Waiting can be endured. Waiting can be avoided. Waiting can be abhorred. Waiting can also be chosen because waiting isn’t a waste. According to a new book by Pastor Mark rogup of College Park church in Indianapolis, Mark offers surprising comfort from trusting God in the uncertainties of life. He defines waiting this way. Quote, 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. End. Quote, it’s a good line. Waiting, as we all know, is unavoidable, but Mark wants us to see that waiting isn’t incidental. In fact, it’s essential to discipleship again. He writes this quote, the more I’ve studied waiting in the Bible, the more I’m stunned. It’s all over the scriptures. It’s a key part of most spiritual leaders story. It’s essential part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Well, I gotta say, if all this is true, then it’s worth exploring further. So Mark, thanks for joining me on gospel bound. Colin, thanks

Mark Vroegop
for having me on your program.

Collin Hansen
So Mark, you are obviously so good at waiting that you wrote a whole book about it. So tell me, friend, what can we learn from your example?

Mark Vroegop
Yeah, totally Yeah. Actually, the reverse is true. As I talk about in the book. I wrote the book on waiting because I stink at waiting everything within my personality, my background, my heritage, my training, like all of it, I’m not good at waiting at all, and I wanted to learn how to be better at it, and not willingly. Last number of years, the Lord’s put me in a number of spots where I was forced to wait and was confronted with the reality that I really don’t do this well. So I started to explore the topic, to figure out, how do I do this? And thus the book waiting isn’t a waste.

Collin Hansen
Now, I’ve heard you share the story a little bit, but you know, I’m a sucker for family history. I’m sucker for family names, things like that. I want you to share that story here too. Yeah,

Mark Vroegop
so my last name, rogop, is Dutch, and what a lot of people don’t realize is, you know, Dutch last names are usually something fairly practical, so you’ve got things like Meyer, which means steward or Schumacher, no surprise, Shoemaker, you’ve got de Young, which means the young one tell Kevin

Collin Hansen
doesn’t look young, but young at heart, yeah, I

Mark Vroegop
know. Well, young at heart, right? So, yeah. And so rogop literally means, in Dutch, early up. So like when Napoleon conquered the Netherlands and made all of these Dutch people get last names. It just really makes me laugh. My great, great, great, great. How far you want to go back grandfather and decided that our last name would be Mr. And Mrs. Early up, essentially saying we get up earlier than all of you. I mean, I don’t know what went into that, the kind of calculus that he came up with to make that determination. But from a very young age, getting up early, working hard, getting things done like that, was part of our family background and heritage. So as I say in the book, even my last name sets me up for failure as it relates to waiting. It’s not an excuse, but it is the reality of just kind of how I think about the world. I want to get it done. I don’t want

Collin Hansen
to wait. Why isn’t waiting valued in our culture? I think this is a good example of something that’s so obvious that maybe we don’t think about it sometimes. But I’m wondering, Mark, is it something more about what we believe about ourselves in the world. It I do think that. I mean also, could it just be technology? It seems like previous generations, though, since we’re talking about family history here, they did have a lot more experience with uncertainty. So what did you find there? Again? Something, belief, system, technology, just how we different from previous generations. What’d you find? Yeah,

Mark Vroegop
so I think our dislike or disdain for waiting is built into our humanity. I would argue that our forefathers, or generations ago, they would have disliked. As well, but they didn’t have as many options to mitigate against having to wait for things. I do think that in our present situation, with the rise of, you know, internet and all kinds of technologies, our familiarity with waiting is really, really decreasing. It’s we’ve normalized not having to wait, and we’ve monetized it in the sense of customer service, not waiting in line, having things happen quickly. I mean, I I have an expectation that a product that I will would order is going to arrive at my doorstep in two days. I mean, what? What world do we live in? And that’s the norm and the expectation, and I think underneath that is our a desire for control, a desire to be omnipotent and a desire to be omniscient. So waiting for information, waiting for things to change, that’s just a very increasingly unfamiliar or uncomfortable place that we find ourselves in. So I think waiting by divine design confronts our humanity, that we’re not as in control of our lives as what we’d like to be.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, that’s profound. What is? What is looking to the Lord mean for you wondering if you have any any practices to come in, because, of course, that’s the that’s the alternative to sort of waiting aimlessly, but by turning that gaze toward the Lord, what? What do you do to help orient yourself that way?

Mark Vroegop
Yeah, I think of waiting as a as a gap moment. And in the Bible, words that are used that relate to waiting, or that our Translate is waiting are connected to what’s being looked for or what is being looked to. So the idea is inviting something into this, this gap moment, which is why, in the Bible and this just blew me away, waiting and hope are are linked together. In fact, one of the Hebrew words for Hope has the word the word weight in its root and in its essence. And so waiting and hope are, are, are linked together. And for most of us, waiting and hope couldn’t be, couldn’t be any more disassociated. For us. Waiting is bad. Waiting is difficult. So as a Christian, what that means is to take those gap moments and to realize this is a space where I can bring who God is into the equation. I can remind myself what he’s like. And so in the book, kind of the thesis of it is waiting on the Lord is learning to live on what I know to be true about God when I don’t know what’s true about my life. So very practically, I’ve found some Lord is statements, like the Lord is my light and my salvation. The Lord is my refuge, The Lord is my shepherd. And when I’m in a season of waiting and I don’t know what’s going on, or I don’t know what’s true about my life, well there’s a lot of things I can know and I can be reminded about that are true about the Lord. And so I bring those, bring him into that equation, to remind myself this is a divinely designed moment, just to remind me again, I’m not in control, but I do know who is, and so I know that I’m not omnipotent, because I have this gap, but I can trust that God is omnipotent, and by reminding myself of who he is, it helps me to know and learn how to wait on the Lord.

Collin Hansen
What do you mean by the statement that biblical waiting is active? I think you’re kind of hinting at it here, but I think if you ask most of us, including me, we describe the waiting experience as passive. So what do you mean?

Mark Vroegop
Yeah, that’s sort of our bias, isn’t it, to think that waiting is something that’s happening to me as though I’m reacting to it. And that’s true, like we have moments where we are forced to be in this position where we don’t know what’s going on, but yet the Bible commends waiting. In fact, the Bible even commands waiting, not something that you’re supposed to just fill up with who God is, because you don’t know what else to do. The Bible actually says no, like the posture of a Christian is, by definition right now, to be waiting on the Lord and waiting for his return, like everything about what it means to be a follower of Jesus involves some kind of waiting. I’m waiting for the process of sanctification. I’m waiting for the return of Jesus. I’m waiting for the answers to the prayer requests that I’ve talked to the Lord about. And so in that respect, waiting is something that we actively participate in, or is something that we could think about as I build into my decision making, or I build into the framework about how I think about my spiritual life, that waiting isn’t just something that happens to me. No, I’m actually choosing to wait or making decisions to. Biblically, wait on the Lord when I face these gap moments.

Collin Hansen
I think we need to focus more on that. What do you mean by choosing to wait? What should I be choosing to wait for?

Mark Vroegop
Yeah, I think, well, one of the things that I’ve done recently is that when I’m thinking about something that I want to do, or something, some sort of ministry plan, or a situation that I’m tempted to jump in quickly, I’m actually slowing down and allowing time for the Lord to work, and not trusting my instincts to get after it quickly. So I’ve I found myself slowing down inviting God more into the equation, realizing that if he doesn’t work in these situations, there really is no hope. And I’m banking my even my pastoral I found the promise that God works for those who wait for him, and it’s actually been really amazing to see, like I’ve actually seen it happen that the Lord has taken care of situations or solved them, or softened hearts. If I had jumped in earlier or too quickly, it would have not only been more difficult, it probably wouldn’t have even worked. So there’s this, this beautiful reality of what it means to wait on the Lord by intention, and with a level of practical planning building waiting into how I’m thinking about making decisions, we’re

Collin Hansen
probably going to lose everybody here, because this is now going to be the second reference to Napoleon in this

Unknown Speaker
Wow. Here we go.

Collin Hansen
I’ve come to term at the katusav strategy in in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Napoleon’s invading Russia, and General katusav is driving everybody crazy because he keeps waiting, waiting and retreating, waiting and retreating, waiting and retreating. Even gives up Moscow and everybody’s like, furious, like, what are you doing? What are you doing until the right moment comes, and then there’s no more waiting. But you’re right just many times, just barreling in on something is absolutely not the right thing to do, even when people are saying, Come on, we’ve got to be active. Well, waiting can be active. They’re gay. Can be purposeful in there. And it’s a something that I that I often counsel in leadership

Mark Vroegop
situations. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, as a guy who has a heart for farming, let me just put it even further, which is, you know, James uses the example of a farmer who plants and he waits for the latter rains. And so you imagine a farmer who plants in his impatience begins to dig up to see what’s going on and ruins his plants. Well, part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, and particularly, I think in pastoral ministry, is a regular planting and then a waiting to see what it is that God is going to do. And I think James makes the case that if you don’t like waiting, you shouldn’t be a farmer, and I’m trying to make the case, if you don’t like waiting, you’re gonna have a hard time being a Christian, and in particular, you’re gonna have a hard time being a pastor.

Collin Hansen
Yeah. And for most of human history, farming has not been just a profession that some people were born into or chose, but rather the default position of virtually everybody. And the very essence of it is that there’s not much you work hard, and you work hard, and in the middle you wait, right? So that would have been just part of the general rhythm of humanity. It wouldn’t have been seen as something unusual, but as something that was simply part of life,

Mark Vroegop
right? A very normal experience would have been waiting. And just, just think, though, so many of us, myself included, my kids, have been raised in this, you know, new technological Disneyland that we live in, like waiting is just not, not normal, and we become entitled, even thinking like it’s a status symbol, right to not wait. It’s like, I’m special, because I don’t have to wait. And then you put that into your spiritual life. Wow, is that doing a number on how we’re thinking about spiritual formation?

Collin Hansen
Who? Well, yeah, I mean, at least in Western cultures, not waiting is absolutely it’s a power symbol, because there are other people who are there to cater for you and and that isn’t just for the wealthiest people. It’s the other day, the notice that I got that the the football cleats I ordered for my son were not going to arrive in the two days, but we’re going to take an extra day. And how indignant I felt about sitting in a waiting room recently, of how pointless and frustrating that felt to me. No, it’s not something that’s coming particularly naturally to us, and you’ve definitely been helping me to connect that back to something that is essential to our spiritual growth. Well, help us also understand here, Mark, just like what. Is what is happening in us as we wait? Like, what’s the what’s this process? Like, internally?

Mark Vroegop
Yeah, by that, do you mean negatively or positively, or both?

Collin Hansen
Yeah, I think more positively, you know, like, what, what sort of spiritual work is the Lord actively doing in us? Yeah, as we wait? Yeah, for

Mark Vroegop
sure. So, great question. So I think one of the things that I came to terms with is that when I’m waiting, it forces me to relinquish my expectations, and often I don’t really even realize what those expectations are. In the book, I talk about a counseling session I had, and my counselor asked me, Hey, what are your expectations for for ministry, and I said, I don’t, I don’t have any expectations. And I thought that was true. I thought it was an immutable principle. And when he chuckled, which you’re not supposed to do if you’re a counselor, laugh. Your counsel, his answers. Then my wife started laughing, and I was like, what? And I they like, seriously, you have expectations. What are they? To name them? Was really important. It was, it was actually a seminal moment to realize that underneath my life, I have this idea about what my life’s going to look like and how long it’s going to take for me to get there. So what’s happening inside of me is I’m relinquishing the control or the lordship of my own life for me to determine what my future and my destiny is. And I think that’s a that’s a really important practice. The second thing is that I’m seeing gap moments not as annoying situations that I want to get through as fast as possible, but Oh, apparently God knows that I need some space here and inviting him to use that season or that moment for my good and for my instruction. So trusting Him, not only with my expectations, but also, what is my what is my day? What is my week? What is my life look like? And then when fear comes because of my desire for control, recognizing that for what it is, and realizing this is a moment for me to live practically in what I believe to be true about God, what I know my theology now really matters. I applied that in a very intense way with grief and lament, but I found myself not doing a very good job applying it sort of in the maybe normal activity of waiting throughout the course of a week or in difficult moments that weren’t grief related, but they were stressful. I wasn’t applying the same concepts and bringing the sovereignty of God even into those so that’s what I learned, and I think was helpful to my soul in studying waiting.

Collin Hansen
Speaking of those expectations, what does that look like in terms of your family dynamics? Are you the one who’s typically kind of impatient waiting on other people. Are you the one who’s sort of kind of corrective saying, Why are you guys so impatient? Does that kind of play out?

Mark Vroegop
Yeah, I’m the only impatient person in my family.

Collin Hansen
No, I ask you to throw anyone under the bus, but there’s different kinds of waiting. There

Mark Vroegop
are. We’re all we’re all human. Here’s the thing, though we here’s the thing I found, that everyone struggles with waiting. It’s just a matter of what sort of the trigger or the moment or the situation. So the expectation is what you say. It’s related which expectation is triggered. Yeah, it relates to expectation. It also can relate to maybe a previous moment that was hard, so it kind of brings back. Ooh, you know, the last time we had this, it turned out like this. So, you know when, when you’ve gotten a bad Oh, man, when, when our daughter died in 2004 and then our now 18 year old daughter was in my wife’s womb. Waiting for nine months was brutal because I had lost the ability to say to my wife, I’m sure everything’s going to be fine. You’re worried about nothing. So that waiting was really difficult. So sometimes a previous pain or a sensitive spot can bring that up, but I would say that my I have a well trained intensity level that can make everyone’s waiting really difficult, and so I think as the chief malefactor of not waiting. Well, it’s been good for me to explore this.

Collin Hansen
Talking with Mark broke up about his book. Waiting isn’t a waste. I’m going to ask my my wise elder on this on this call, does waiting get easier with age? Mark?

Mark Vroegop
That’s a great question. I I don’t know, because I’m so young, so how about that? So. Oh, you’re

Collin Hansen
not. De young, you’re early to rise. Come on here. Yeah, I’m not. I’m not.

Mark Vroegop
So here’s who I think. I think it gets complicated, and here’s why, because I think you get the experience of being able to see and trace God’s hand, and you have more record of God’s faithfulness. In the book, I talk about mapping God’s faithfulness. So in some respects, you’ve got more stories of the way in which God showed up and helped and gave you the grace needed. On the other side, you also have more stories of what can go wrong. And so your naivete of your youth has been imploded and exploded, and so you know that things really can turn out badly, and as a result, I think you’re you’re more seasoned in both spaces. So I don’t think it gets easier. I do think you have more resources and more wisdom to apply to it.

Collin Hansen
That’s a good multi dimensional perspective there of I mean, because I’ve seen that go a couple different ways, there’s sort of a a calm that can come over us with age of saying we know it’s going to work out. But then the some people you see is total wrecked with anxiety, because they know that it doesn’t work out in all sorts of different cases. So in either situation, cause to trust the Lord mark. Give me a scenario where you wish you could have talked to your younger self about waiting.

Mark Vroegop
Yeah, you know, I think of sermons that I preached in my 20s and 30s, and I underestimated what the regular faithful teaching of the word would do over the course of five years. Yeah, and I overestimated and over desired for a single sermon to be able to radically change a person’s life, and as a result. And I remember when my wife told me this, she said, Honey, you’re, you’re swinging for the fence every single Sunday. And and I, you know, I just the Lord does his work through His Word, and it’s important to wait for him to be able to do that. So thinking of preaching more like planting seeds in a field that are going to grow, you know, over time, I think the other thing is just realizing that issues in people’s lives and in the church are far more complicated than how they first present themselves. And spiritual progress, both in people and in an entire church, takes time, and waiting on the Lord and waiting to see how that’s going to work out with people is really important. And so I think just I’ve spent probably too much energy in my lifetime, being overly concerned, overly worried, overly active, when the fact of the matter is, is that God’s the one that does the work. So work hard, but know where those boundaries are. And I think that would have helped me had I understood that in my younger years,

Collin Hansen
what about just in leading a staff? You got a large staff there at that church. What kind of example we talked earlier about the example you might set as a father and as a husband and then as a preacher? What about as a leader more generally, how do you set a tone in terms of or how have you learned to apply what you’re learning about waiting to your leadership?

Mark Vroegop
It’s great, great question. I think of an example just in the last eight months where we were thinking through some key words and phrases for the direction of the next couple years. And those, those words are really important. You know, they create a sense of unity, a sense of vision. And it’s one thing to have them just on a whiteboard. It’s another to know that the Lord was the one who’s helped us to know where we should take and lead his church. And I remember, we’re having this great conversation, and I paused. I said, Hey, before we go any further, can we just take a moment and just wait on the Lord and remind ourselves that the words on this whiteboard are about a local assembly of the very bride of Christ? And so we paused, and we just spent some time not just praying, but we spent some time just waiting on the Lord, and then got back into it. And as our staff reflected on that exercise, one of the comments that they had was how helpful that just sort of reset was in framing our thinking. You know, another one is just a. Allowing space in a worship service, for there to be some silence, for there to be some intentional gaps that we create. Sometimes our people are so inundated with information and sound and movement that they just need to breathe and rest and sort of recollect themselves by by waiting on the Lord in the context of a service and not to be that long, but just creating that space has been been uniquely helpful, while also realizing that the drumbeat of life and culture and even the church terms of how, how we’re moving all the time that has an impact on people, and we can unintentionally, just kind of go with the culture and design services and programs and all of our activity. It just kind of fits in that spirit of the age. So trying to push against that a little bit, I think it’s been helpful.

Collin Hansen
So one more question here with Mark broke up talking about his book. Waiting isn’t a waste. Give us a place in scripture where you like to meditate. You’re waiting on something especially important. You know you’re you’re texting me in that waiting room in the hospital. Where do you want me to be turning my eyes to see the Lord in Scripture in that moment?

Mark Vroegop
Yeah, there’s a lot of places my go to. Favorite verses are Psalm 27 The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? I also love Psalm 40. I waited patiently for the Lord. Now I love that one, because the There’s no word patient in the text. It just it’s I waited and waited and waited for the Lord, and just a reminder of incorporating not only who God is, but the thought that waiting is such a common part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. It’s all over the Bible. So I ought not, not only to not be surprised at waiting, but welcome God into it by reminding myself who he is, that the Lord is my light. He is my salvation. Those would be my two signature texts that I go to all the time.

Collin Hansen
Strikes me mark that what we’re doing here in waiting is simply acknowledging that the Lord is who he says he is, and that He’s real, and that whatever we know to be true about him, the reality of his work, is far more important than anything that we can sense or see, taste, touch, smell, hear, that we’re acknowledging That ultimate spiritual reality, which is clearly vital in our own spiritual growth, but also in our testimony to a world that doesn’t doesn’t know how to wait, doesn’t know what they’d be waiting for anyway. And so this is not only a spiritual discipline that is vitally important for all of us and essential to humanity, but also one that we can model in a way that will hopefully witness to the power of the gospel to our neighbors. The book again, waiting isn’t a waste. By my friend Mark frogup College Park church in Indianapolis. Mark, thanks for joining me.

Mark Vroegop
Thanks, Collin