WAITING-AND WHY IT MATTERS MORE THAN EVER-#13

Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! (Psalm 27:14)

“One of the chief needs in our waiting upon God, one of the deepest secrets of its blessedness and blessing, is a quiet confident persuasion, that it is not in vain; a courage to believe that God will hear and help” (Andrew Murray, Waiting on God, Daily Messages for a Month)

I'd ordered a pair of hiking shoes from Amazon that were now an hour past their promised delivery window. I noticed a growing sense of irritation building in me. This came on the heels of an internet glitch that had slowed down a research effort, delaying my plans to finish something on time. Two minor interruptions. Two small waits. And my world was not in a good place.

I stopped and asked myself — what was life like not that long ago? When finding a pair of shoes meant a trip to the mall, and research meant tracking down an encyclopedia at the library. The simple truth is that I — and many like me — have simply lost the ability to wait. We are no longer accustomed to it. And increasingly, we are no longer willing to tolerate it.

This was brought into sharp focus for me recently while listening to Andy Crouch on a podcast.* Andy is a technology and AI consultant with Praxis, working with Fortune 100 companies on the benefits and risks of emerging technology. In this conversation he raised a question that stayed with me — what does the immediacy of technology actually do to our temperament and personalities over time?

Search results are now essentially instantaneous. AI tools like Claude or Gemini don't just answer quickly — they provide clarity, comparative analysis and plans of action with a single keystroke. Crouch's observation is that this sequence of events is quietly reshaping our tolerance for anything that doesn't respond the same way. Distraction and silence are normal — even necessary — parts of most human exchange. In an AI interaction they are completely unacceptable. As Crouch pointedly notes: you wouldn't pay for a bot that responded like a typical human being.

So then I thought how do I contrast waiting in a relationship with God? What might that actually look like?

Practices of prayer, reflection and contemplation operate on an entirely different timeline — one that has nothing to do with the promptness of response or the immediacy of the ask. In fact the Bible is filled with commands and encouragements to wait on the Lord. The Psalms alone — depending on your translation — contain sixteen distinct references to waiting on God. Sixteen. That's not coincidence. That's instruction. So what we do with that?

Mark Vroegop addresses this directly in his book Waiting Isn't a Waste: The Surprising Comfort of Trusting God in the Uncertainties of Life*. He acknowledges that waiting is genuinely hard — but argues that it is a necessary feature of both normal life and mature faith, not a design flaw to be engineered around. Waiting, he suggests, builds patience — long-suffering in the language of the King James Bible. It is communal and bonding, drawing people together in collective prayer and mutual support. And in its deepest form it is healing because it links to hope. All of us are waiting for some kind of deliverance at various points of our life—-young, middle aged and old— holding on yearnings that may or may not be answered. This creates struggle for most of us. From a faith perspective, the book of Revelation closes with "Come, Lord Jesus" — a statement of hope and expectation that has echoed across two thousand years of people learning, imperfectly, to wait. In short, as Vroegop states, the church started in a state of expectant hope and the wait continues to this day. It is, in itself, a practice of faith.

This reframing of waiting has been unexpectedly important in my own post-work journey.

The questions of what to do with this season, how to spend an abundance of time I never had before, pondering what I am actually here for …if not for work alone… these all have been a considerable challenge. In the midst of working through the frustration of silence, and the unsettling sense of praying to a God who seemed in no particular hurry to respond, something has slowly started to come into view. The deadline-driven, cadence heavy rhythm of behaviour, honed through decades of employment is being — gradually, reluctantly — transformed. And in the process, a whole new language is emerging to comprehend along with a whole new cadence to adhere to. I am learning to live more patiently for purposes that are not mine to schedule.

What those purposes are, I am still figuring out. But the waiting itself has moved my dependency more heavily toward God. And it has given me something I didn't expect to find in the silence — a growing, albeit tentative, trust for what He has in store.

Even when the shoes are late.

*This from the podcast Good Faith hosted by Curtis Chang. Andy Crouch is a guest and the episode is entitled Defending the Human Mind in an AI World.

**One short paragraph on Vroegop’s work does it no justice. This is a worthy read for anyone who is looking for direction, insight and perspective while in a season of waiting. I’d venture to say that in this instant oriented socitety we live in, that would likely include just about all of us.