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?

Tags: God's Healing, Grief, Waiting on God

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.

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.

Yesterday’s journey ended with the Woman at the Well in a dilemma. God told her to wait.

So what would “hope” look like in her immediate context? Hoping in God, she would choose delayed gratification over immediate gratification. She would accept her singleness, clinging to God and trusting His timing.

Hope waits. Hope is the refusal to demand heaven now.

Waiting Defined

If hope leads to waiting, what then is waiting? Waiting is trusting God’s future provision without working to provide for myself. Waiting is refusing to take over while refusing to give up.

Waiting refuses self-rescue.

You’ll never see waiting as one of the stages of grieving in any research study because it is not natural in a fallen world. It is supernatural.

I do a lot of ministry to ministers. A couple of years ago I was working with a pastor and his wife (we’ll call them Tim and Terri) in a situation where the pastor was fired, frankly, without cause. No moral failure. No doctrinal error. This pastor had been at the church for over 20 years. It was the only home his three teenage daughters knew.

We worked through the candor, complaint, cry, and comfort process. When it came time for waiting, he battled. Everything in him wanted, almost desperately needed, to regroup. He was ready to take a church, any church, on the rebound. He was ready to take a job, any job, on the rebound.

However, I counseled him to wait before making any long-term commitments to a new ministry position because I sensed that he was motivated by a desire for self-rescue, for regrouping, not by a desire to wait on God.

Waiting Biblically Supported

Was my counsel godly or ungodly? Wise or foolish? Too heavenly-minded to be of any earthly good? Can we find biblical support for the principle of waiting rather than regrouping?

We’ll be back tomorrow for answers to these important questions.