24 Apr Discussion Guide: Where Can Wisdom Be Found? Week 13
Prayer
Take the first 10 minutes of your time together to listen to what God is doing in one another’s lives and pray for any specific needs people in your group may have.
Suffering…it’s a reality everyone goes through at some point in life. But what does suffering mean? Does it tell us something about ourselves? Does it tell us something about our world? Does it tell us something about God? The answer is a resounding YES. The real question is what does suffering tell us about those things, and perhaps even more importantly is the question of how can we navigate through our suffering in a way that makes us stronger in the end? That is what we will discuss during our time together.
Discussion Questions
Michel de Montaigne, French Renaissance Philosopher
“A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.”
For you, what is the scariest thing when it comes to suffering?
What would you say is most needed when you are going through a time of suffering?
What is most needed in our suffering is not answers as to the cause of our suffering as much as the need for companionship, for someone to stand with us in our suffering and let us know we are not alone not are we crazy for what we are feeling.
Psalm 69:19-21
You know my reproach, and my shame and my dishonor; my foes are all known to you. Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.
Can you think of a time of suffering where you had someone who cared about you enough to walk with you through it? Are you willing to tell us about that time?
Can you think of a time of suffering where you didn’t have someone to walk through it with you? Are you willing to tell us about that time?
How would you describe the difference between having someone with you, and not having someone with you, in your time of suffering?
Pope Francis
“The culture of comfort…makes us insensitive to the cries of other people, makes us live in soap bubbles which, however lovely, are insubstantial; they offer a fleeting and empty illusion which results in indifference to others…In this globalized world, we have fallen into globalized indifference. We have become used to the suffering of others: it doesn’t affect me; it doesn’t concern me; it’s none of my business.
How might our entering into, and walking with others through their suffering help them persevere and maybe even change their perspective in regards to their suffering?
What makes it difficult to be the person who walks with others through their suffering?
What would it require of us to be the kind of person who walks with others through their suffering?
walking with others through suffering requires sacrifice on our behalf. We have to die to our own comforts, conveniences, budgets, schedules, etc. We have to be willing to enter into the situation with that individual, which means we have to reprioritize the things we value most. Rather than prioritizing success, fame, fortune, or even helps, we would have to reprioritize other people’s joy and security as more important than our own.
Closing Thought
Isaiah 53:3-5
He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
How did Jesus model for us this call to bear other people’s burdens?
With that in mind, what does it mean to live an incarnational life?