Hope Waits

What about you? We’ve explored how we can journey with others helping them to wait on God. But what about you?

Whether you are reflecting on your past suffering or experiencing current grief, here are a few suggestions and questions. I’ve designed them to help you to move from regrouping and immediate self-gratification to waiting on God—trusting God’s future provision without working to provide for myself.

Don’t try to address every suggestion. Pick a couple that connect with you.

My Waiting on God Journey

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

2. 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?

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

4. 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”?

5. You’re at a faith-point. “I trust Him; I trust Him not. I’ll wait; I’ll not wait.” Which will it be? Will you wait or regroup? Will you wait on God or will you self-sufficiently depend upon yourself?

6. What would the consequences be if you regrouped through immediate self-gratification?

7. In waiting, you cling to God’s rope of hope even when you can’t see it. What is God’s invisible rope of hope for you?

8. Moses was able to delay gratification and wait because he was looking ahead to his future reward. What future reward are you setting your eyes on?

9. Paul considered that his present sufferings were not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. What future glory are you focusing on?

10. 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?

The Rest of the Story

When we wait, and wait, and wait . . . and still we find no answers, no fulfillment this side of heaven, what results? And how are we to respond? That will be our focus the next few days as we examine biblical wailing.