25 Journal Prompts for Trusting God With the Future

Trusting God with the future sounds peaceful. In practice it usually means sitting with a question you cannot answer and choosing not to force it.

Psalm 51:10 is worth praying before you begin. Create in me a clean heart, O God, renew a right spirit within me. It is not a verse about the future, and that is rather the point. What most needs attending to before an unknown year is not the plan. It is the spirit you will meet it with. These twenty-five prompts are for that. They are grouped by the shape the worry takes, so start with whichever section is loudest.

When You Are Waiting

1. What am I waiting for, stated plainly and without softening it?

2. How long have I been waiting, and what has that time cost me?

3. What have I learned in the waiting that I would not have learned otherwise?

4. What am I doing while I wait, and is any of it worth keeping?

5. If the answer came tomorrow, what would I wish I had done with this stretch?

When You Are Deciding

6. What are the actual options, written out rather than circled in my head?

7. Which one am I hoping God will choose, and why that one?

8. What would I advise a friend in exactly this position?

9. Who has walked something similar, and have I asked them?

10. What is the smallest next step I could take without committing to everything?

When You Are Afraid

11. What specifically am I afraid of, and how likely is it?

12. What would I do if it happened?

13. Who would still be there?

14. What has God already carried me through that I thought I could not survive?

15. What is the fear costing me today, while the thing has not happened?

When You Cannot See Ahead

16. What do I know for certain about God, regardless of what happens next?

17. What has He promised that does not depend on my circumstances?

18. Where am I asking for a map when I have been given a next step?

19. What would this week look like if I only planned seven days?

20. What am I holding that was never mine to hold?

When You Want To Let Go

21. What would I need to release to sleep tonight?

22. What would trusting Him with this actually look like, in behavior?

23. What am I refusing to give up control of, and what am I afraid would happen?

24. What can I hand over today, even partly?

25. What do I want to say to God about all of this, in my own words?

How to Work Through Them

One a day is plenty. Do not try to resolve anything on the page. Half of these will not have answers, and writing an honest question is still worth the ink.

Come back in six months and read what you were afraid of. Some of it will have happened and been survivable. Most of it will not have happened at all.