Links for the Weekend (2025-05-16)

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Why Does God Make Us Wait for Good Things?

Mark Vroegop says this is a fair question with uncertain answers. He helps us refocus, from wondering about why to looking at who. Waiting is for our good. (There is a video at this link as well as a transcript, so you can watch/listen or read, according to your preference.)

Waiting is part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. It’s part of what it means to trust that God knows what he’s doing. And so when you’re waiting for something good and it’s not coming, the hope and the comfort that the Bible offers to us, like from Psalm 27, is that our hearts can take courage as we wait on the Lord.

The One Virtue Every Young Man Needs

Trevin Wax writes about self-control, and he frames this virtue in terms of sanctification instead of stoicism.

The gospel takes the ancient virtue of self-control and transposes it into a new key. It’s not first and foremost about you. It’s about God. It’s self-control in service of love. Love depends on self-control, yes, but love also deepens self-control. Love turns self-control upward and outward, toward God and toward others. It’s not about independence of self but dependence on God. It’s not about self-mastery; it’s about Spirit-mastery. It’s not about controlling yourself for your own sake; it’s about being controlled by Christ for the sake of others. It’s yielding to the One who loves you with an everlasting love and who wants now to love others through you.

Two Poems

I’m sharing two poems this week, both courtesy of the Rabbit Room Poetry Substack.

• Mary and Eve, by Michael Stalcup — This poem is inspired by the illustration from Sister Grace Remington which imagines a meeting between Eve and a pregnant Mary.
• Tell No One, by Elizabeth Wickland — This poem describes some of the wonders of spring and insists that they must be experienced (not just heard about) to be truly enjoyed.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article written by Maggie Amaismeier called Books and Podcasts, May 2025. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here.