13 | James 5:7-12 | Study Guide

Opening 

Describe a time when you had to wait for something significant in your life. What was that process like? How did your prayers change? What did that time reveal in your own heart? 

Questions 

Read James 5:7–12 

1. James uses the farmer analogy to describe what waiting should look like. Why is this an important example of waiting? What fruit are you waiting for right now? How are you tempted to take matters into your own hands instead of trusting in the Lord? 

2. What does it mean to establish your hearts as we wait on the coming of the Lord (v. 8)? What does an unstable heart look like? How might an established heart help us wait and patiently endure? Do you truly live expecting the Lord to return? 

3. Where do you find yourself impatient right now — with God, others, or circumstances? What might it look like to “wait like a farmer”? 

4. James connects waiting patiently with grumbling (v.9). How do these two things relate to one another? What does grumbling with one another reveal about our hearts? 

5. James calls our attention to the prophets and Job who waited and endured (vv. 10-11). How can we learn from their example? Who in your life has modeled patient endurance well?