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Waiting… - Week Two

May 10, 2026 0 0

 

Week 2: Typing… 

 

Context:

 

It can be agonising, you’re waiting for a reply from someone and all you can see is ‘So-and-So is typing…’ or perhaps the three bouncing dots. What are they going to say? You’re in suspense. And then, the dots stop, and no message arrives and you’re left hanging. This week we explore the moments in our lives when it seems like ‘God is typing…’ and the three dots are bouncing, but no message seems to be coming through.

What is our personal attitude to waiting in our lives? How does it makes us feel? What are we waiting for God to say or do? Discuss!

 

The group leader leads a quick discussion on any initial thoughts and reactions to these ideas before moving on to the next section: Introducing the readings.

 

Introducing the readings:

 

This psalm is a call to praise God and celebrates the collective experience of a people who waited a long time for God to deliver them. The psalms in general recognise the rollercoaster human experience of reaching out to God — the joy and struggle, the longing and fulfilment. In the gospel reading from John, Jesus is anticipating how bereft and alone the disciples might feel when he dies and when he ascends to heaven and so he tells them about the gift of the Holy Spirit and how through the community of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit they will not be left alone for they will always be together. This is echoed in the brief excerpt from the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, as Paul beautifully describes how we don’t just wait for God we wait with God, who is not distant and remote, but right with us in the here and now through the power of the Spirit.

 

Read: Psalm 66, John 14: 15-21, Romans 8: 26-27

 

A volunteer reads these Bible texts and then the group leader reads the following words from the Response to initiate a discussion on the readings and theme.

 

Response:

 

The ‘Q:’ sections are questions that are thrown out to the group to initiate discussion on the passage and themes. Pause after each to discuss the ideas.

 

Q: Is there a particular verse in the psalm that resonates with you and your relationship with God at this moment? Or perhaps you’d like to share a verse from another psalm that resonates with what you are going through?

Q: How does hearing about the experience of others, and sharing our own experience of faith help us through our times of waiting on God? Both in the forms of songs and shared history and ordinary conversation with friends. Do you have a story to share of when you have felt yourself waiting a long time on God? Or when you felt God answer your prayer after a long time of praying?

Sometimes waiting on God can leave us feeling like God is distant and remote — like a friend who only sends us intermittent texts. But the Holy Spirit abides in us, closer that we know. You could say the longing we have for one another, the longing we have for God, the longing for response and connection is woven deep in our very DNA. As Jesus says in John 14, we are not orphans — in the fabric of our being we are held.

Q: Does knowing that the Holy Spirit waits with us, endures with us, feels it with us — groaning alongside us — change how we feel about waiting? The God we read about in the New Testament is not on the other end of a phone — dropping in and out of signal but here, in the wordless places of our hearts, the places where there are no words, through the Holy Spirit.