Waiting: When God Says “Not Yet”

Journeying and Journaling with God

Waiting: When God Says “Not Yet”

Note: At the end of each chapter of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting, I include two reflection/action sections. One is Your Journey and one is Your Journal. Today, I’m sharing a few sample Waiting Journey and Journal interactions to help you on your path of grief and growth—of finding God’s healing hope.

Your Waiting Journey

1. In waiting, you refuse to take over while refusing to give up. Where would you rate yourself on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being demanding immediate, self-sufficient gratification—changed feelings and circumstances, and with 10 being waiting on God by delaying gratification through faith?

2. Think back to a time when God brought hope, joy, newness, and “resurrection” into your life after a casket experience.

a. What did God use to bring about your spiritual victory?

b. How did you begin to see God differently? How did you begin to experience more of His goodness? How were you able to love Him more deeply?

c. As you found His strength in your weakness, what was God able to accomplish through you? How was He able to use you as a hero/heroine in His grand adventure narrative?

Your Waiting Journal

1. Hope waits. What are you waiting on God for? How are you trusting God’s future provision without taking matters into your own hands?

2. Waiting is refusing to take over while refusing to give up. Where are you finding the strength to “keep on keeping on”? How are you resisting the temptation to “curse God and die”?

3. Paul considered that his present sufferings were not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us (Romans 8:18-19). What future glory are you focusing on?

Join the Conversation

Which of the interactions/questions/reflections most resonate with you?