14 Bible Verses About Trusting God’s Process

Proverbs 3:5-6

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

Reflection: A father is teaching “my son” (3:1), and the trust he asks for is set against the son’s own understanding. Verse 7 restates it as a warning: “Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil.” The promise attached to that trust is a straight path.

Hebrews 11:1

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

Reflection: This definition opens the chapter that lists Abel, Noah, Abraham, Moses and others who acted on God’s promises. Verse 13 says of them that “they did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance,” and verse 39 repeats that none of them received what had been promised.

Jeremiah 29:11

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Reflection: Jeremiah sent this promise in a letter from Jerusalem to the people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile in Babylon (29:1), and the letter opens with how to live during the wait (29:4-7). The exiles are to build houses, plant gardens, marry and “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.” Verse 10 gives the length of the wait, “when seventy years are completed for Babylon,” and verses 12-13 say what they will do then: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

Romans 8:28

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Reflection: The verse follows a passage about waiting. Paul says believers hope for what they “do not yet have” and “wait for it patiently” (8:25), and that in the meantime the Spirit “intercedes for us through wordless groans” because “we do not know what we ought to pray for” (8:26). Verse 29 goes on: “those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”

Reflection: The Teacher follows this line with a list of opposites, from “a time to be born and a time to die” to “a time for war and a time for peace.” Verse 11 adds that God “has made everything beautiful in its time” and has set eternity in the human heart, “yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

Habakkuk 2:3

“For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”

Reflection: Habakkuk began his book asking, “How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?” (1:2), and took up a watch post to wait for an answer (2:1). The Lord tells him to write the revelation on tablets and wait for it even if it lingers. The next verse holds the line Paul later quotes in Romans 1:17: “the righteous person will live by his faithfulness.”

Psalm 27:14

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”

Reflection: This is the closing line of the psalm, and it comes straight after the psalmist’s statement of confidence: “I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (27:13). The Hebrew verb for wait, qavah, appears twice in the verse, before and after the call to be strong and take heart.

Lamentations 3:25-26

“The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”

Reflection: The speaker has just recalled “the bitterness and the gall” of his affliction (3:19) and then turned to the Lord’s compassions, which “are new every morning” (3:23). He tells himself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him” (3:24). Verse 31 adds that “no one is cast off by the Lord forever.”

Psalm 37:7

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.”

Reflection: The psalm is about watching wrongdoers prosper, and it tells the reader three times in its first eight verses not to fret. Its alternative is trust over time: “Trust in the Lord and do good” (37:3), “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this” (37:5), and “A little while, and the wicked will be no more” (37:10).

Isaiah 40:31

“But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

Reflection: Israel has complained, “My way is hidden from the Lord” (40:27). The answer is that the Lord “will not grow tired or weary” and “gives strength to the weary” (40:28-29), while even young men stumble and fall. The NIV’s “hope in the Lord” translates qavah, the verb the King James Version renders “wait upon the Lord.”

James 1:2-4

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

Reflection: James tells his readers to count trials as joy because of what testing produces: perseverance, which must “finish its work” before they are “mature and complete.” The next verse turns to what a person in the middle of trials lacks: “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault.”

Romans 5:3-5

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

Reflection: Paul’s chain runs from suffering to perseverance to character to hope, and it starts from peace with God that believers already have through faith (5:1). The last link is anchored outside the person suffering: hope “does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”

Galatians 6:9

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

Reflection: Paul has just written that “a man reaps what he sows” (6:7), contrasting sowing to the flesh with sowing to the Spirit. The harvest comes “at the proper time,” and the condition is not giving up; verse 10 names the work in the meantime: “let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”

Hebrews 12:1-2

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”

Reflection: The “cloud of witnesses” are the people of Hebrews 11, and the race is run with perseverance. The model is Jesus, who “for the joy set before him” endured the cross, and verse 3 gives the reason to consider him: “so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”