Resting in God

How do you help others to wait on God? How do you help your hurting, grieving spiritual friends to find delay gratification and remember their future hope?

There are many effective ways to journey with people toward trusting God’s future provision without working to provide for themselves. We’ll focus again on trialogues: three-way conversations between us, our friend, and the Ultimate Spiritual Friend: Christ.

Sample Waiting/Hope Trialogues

Waiting may be the most difficult stage to trialogue about because it is the most difficult stage to apply. It takes supernatural intervention. Consider some sample biblical trialogues to assist people to refuse to take over while refusing to give up.

“God’s timing and ours are often light years apart. What are you experiencing as you wait on God?”

“When God wanted Esau to wait, Esau took matters into his own hands and messed everything up. Are you facing any similar temptations to handle your hurt on your own? To fix things in your own strength?”

“Abraham is a classic example of refusing to wait on God. He decided to help God out by having Hagar bare him a son. What were the horrible results of this in his life? What might the negative results be in your life if you take matters into your own hands?”

“What would it look like for you to rest in God right now? For you to surrender to God? To trust instead of work, to wait instead of demand?”

“Someone once defined Biblical perseverance as ‘remaining under without giving in.’ How are you remaining under your suffering without giving in to self-rescue? Where are you finding the strength to do this?”

“Could we explore some passages like Romans 5; James 1; 1 Peter 1, and Hebrews 11 that teach us how to wait on God in the midst of suffering?”

“How could you apply Moses’ delayed gratification, waiting, faith, and trust (Hebrews 11:24-26) to your situation?”

“What would it look like not to quit while this lingers?”

“What would quitting mean? What would it look like? What would result?”

“What will it look like to trust God while you wait on Him?”

“Let’s look at Revelation 7. How do these wonderful pictures of heaven give you hope today?”

And What About You?

How is your hope meter? In our next post we’ll explore ways we can find the endurance to wait on God.