Before We Get Started

For our discussion today, we will be using the sermon series discussion guides. If you would like to follow along you can access this discussion guide on the website at mosaicchurchaustin.com and then select “community group resources” in the menu options.

Prayer

Because the primary goal of our time together is to establish relationships and learn how to walk with one another in all that God has called us to be and do, we’d like to begin by praying for one another. So, does anyone have anything you’d like us to pray for or anything to share regarding how you’ve seen God moving in your life that we can celebrate together?

This Week’s Topic

Processing the Emotional Life

Today’s Topic

Processing Despair

Discussion Questions

To begin, read the entirety of Psalm 88 aloud:

A song. A psalm of the Sons of Korah. For the director of music. According to mahalath leannoth. A maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.

Lord, you are the God who saves me;

    day and night I cry out to you.

May my prayer come before you;

    turn your ear to my cry.

I am overwhelmed with troubles

    and my life draws near to death.

I am counted among those who go down to the pit;

    I am like one without strength.

I am set apart with the dead,

    like the slain who lie in the grave,

whom you remember no more,

    who are cut off from your care.

You have put me in the lowest pit,

    in the darkest depths.

Do you show your wonders to the dead?

    Do their spirits rise up and praise you?

Is your love declared in the grave,

    your faithfulness in Destruction[e]?

Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,

    or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

But I cry to you for help, Lord;

    in the morning my prayer comes before you.

Why, Lord, do you reject me

    and hide your face from me?

From my youth I have suffered and been close to death;

    I have borne your terrors and am in despair.

Your wrath has swept over me;

    your terrors have destroyed me.

All day long they surround me like a flood;

    they have completely engulfed me.

You have taken from me friend and neighbor—

    darkness is my closest friend.

How Authentic Prayer Sounds

Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

My belief is that when you’re telling the truth, you’re close to God. If you say to God, “I am exhausted and depressed beyond words, and I don’t like You at all right now, and I recoil from most people who believe in You,” that might be the most honest thing you’ve ever said. If you told me you had said to God, “It is all hopeless, and I don’t have a clue if You exist, but I could use a hand,” it would almost bring tears to my eyes, tears of pride in you, for the courage it takes to get real-really real. It would make me want to sit next to you at the dinner table.

So prayer is our sometimes real selves trying to communicate with the Real, with Truth, with the Light. It is us reaching out to be heard, hoping to be found by a light and warmth in the world, instead of darkness and cold. Even mushrooms respond to light – I suppose they blink their mushroomy eyes, like the rest of us.

Light reveals us to ourselves, which is not always so great if you find yourself in a big disgusting mess, possibly of your own creation. But like sunflowers we turn toward light. Light warms, and in most cases it draws us to itself. And in this light, we can see beyond our modest receptors, to what is way beyond us, and deep inside.

 

Do you tend to stuff your emotions down or air them publicly?

When is it easiest for you to be honest with God about your emotions?

What is the most challenging part of pursuing God in prayer for you?

What Deep Darkness Can Do

Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark

After years of being taught that the way to deal with painful emotions is to get rid of them, it can take a lot of reschooling to learn to sit with them instead, finding out from those who feel them what they have learned by sleeping in the wilderness that those who sleep in comfortable houses may never know.

 

John of the Cross

Would that men might come at last to see that it is quite impossible to reach the thicket of the riches and wisdom of God except by first entering the thicket of much suffering, in such a way that the soul finds there its consolation and desire. The soul that longs for divine wisdom chooses first, and in truth, to enter the thicket of the cross.

How do our expectations about life, God, and people impact how we navigate times of spiritual darkness?

Who in your life has modeled healthy ways to process painful circumstances and the emotions that inevitably come with them?

What aspects of God’s character and being do you lean into when you face dark times?

Where Grit is Forged

Tim Keller

Job never saw why he suffered, but he saw God, and that was enough.

Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet

When things fall apart, the broken pieces allow all sorts of things to enter, and one of them is the presence of God.

John Mark Comer, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

An easy life isn’t an option; an easy yoke is.

Why do you think people want comfortable lives that make sense to them?

What have you gained in your spiritual journey as a direct result of your faith? What have you lost or relinquished?

When has a challenge or loss brought growth to your life that you may not have experienced any other way?

What Questions God Answers

Psalm 88:14 

Why, Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me?

Matthew 27:45-46

From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

What kind of questions arise in your soul when you suffer?

Why do you imagine darkness descended while Jesus hung dying on the cross?

How does the story of Jesus offer you hope when you face despair?

Closing Time

Andrew Peterson, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness

So this is a story about light and goodness and Truth with a capital T. It’s about beauty, and resurrection, and redemption. But for those things to ring true in a child’s heart, the storyteller has to be honest. He has to acknowledge that sometimes when the hall light goes out and the bedroom goes dark, the world is a scary place. He has to nod his head to the presence of all the sadness in the world; children know it’s there from a very young age, and I wonder sometimes if that’s why babies cry. He has to admit that sometimes characters make bad choices, because every child has seen their parent angry or irritable or deceitful–even the best people in our lives are capable of evil. But of course the storyteller can’t stop there. He has to show in the end there is a Great Good in the world (and beyond it). Sometimes it is necessary to paint the sky black in order to show how beautiful is the prick of light. Gather all the wickedness in the universe into its loudest shriek and God hears it as a squeak at best. And that is a comforting thought. When a child reads the last sentence of my stories, I hope he or she drifts to sleep with a glow in their hearts and a warmth in their bones, believing that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

In your final few minutes, pray for God to meet, comfort, and strengthen anyone present who is struggling with a dark time.