In the Meantime (2) – A Purpose and a Promise

Welcome to CROLCC, we are so glad you are here worshiping with us. Last week we started this series In the Meantime and we are talking about what do you do when there seems to be nothing you can do. There are seasons of life in which we feel that none of our options are good options, and that there just seems to be no future and no hope in our circumstances. We said that if you ever felt that way you are not alone, because people in the New Testament have felt the exact same thing. Just because Go seems absence doesn’t mean he really is, in fact, the opposite is true. God knows your name and cares about you. You just need to say it out loud and believe it.

Today we are going to answer this question – how do we maintain our faith during difficult times? Every once in a while, we run into people stuck in unchangeable, unalterable, in-the-meantime circumstances who get to the place where they’re able and willing to receive their circumstances, their afflictions, their illnesses, their losses, and their disabilities as being allowed by the hand of their heavenly Father. How do these people maintain extraordinary faith despite extraordinarily difficult circumstances? Where do they find the peace that characterizes their lives?

Moving Forward

If you believe God can change your circumstances but chooses not to, you have the option to receive those circumstances from him as a gift with a purpose and a promise: grace.

Changing Your Mind

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
Luke 22:42

Discussion Questions

1. Why do you think people assume that faith in God will remove adversity from life? Have you ever made that assumption? If so, how did it influence your relationship with God?

2. Talk about a time when you or someone you knew faced difficult circumstances and God was silent. How did that experience affect your faith in the short term? How did it affect your faith in the long term?

3. Read 2 Corinthians 12:7–10. What would it look like for you to “delight in weakness” for the sake of Jesus? How would it change the way you respond to adversity?

4. Do you feel permission to plead with God to take away your difficult circumstances? Do you believe he responds to that kind of prayer? Why or why not?

5. What is the “thorn in your side,” the ongoing struggle or challenge that you can’t change and about which you need to accept God’s grace in order to move forward? What can you do to begin to view that “thorn” as a gift that comes with a purpose and a promise from your heavenly Father? How can this group support you?