Waiting for God
A LifeGuide® Bible Study
WAITING FOR GOD
8 STUDIES FOR INDIVIDUALS OR GROUPS
Juanita Ryan
Contents
Getting the Most Out of Waiting for God
1 When Waiting Is Difficult
Psalm 13
2 Wisdom in Waiting
Proverbs 3:1–12
3 Waiting for God
Psalm 42
4 Waiting Together
Job 2:11–13; 6:1–17; 13:1–5
5 Waiting with Hope
Luke 1:1–25, 57–80
6 God’s Presence and Purposes in Our Waiting
Genesis 37:12–36; 39:1–23; 50:15–21
7 The Gifts in Waiting
Psalm 40
8 The God Who Waits
Luke 15:11–32
Getting the Most Out of Waiting for God
“How long, O God, how long? Will you forget me forever?” This was the cry of the psalmist. It was the cry of many of the prophets. It may also be the cry of your heart at this time in your life. Or it may be that you endured such a time in your past and are left with questions about it. Maybe you also know someone who is going through such a time.
We will all experience times of waiting in the midst of uncertainty or suffering or great need. During these times we may feel desperate for something to change or for a sign of hope that things will change soon. But often in our periods of waiting, nothing happens, nothing changes. If anything, things seem to get worse.
In the midst of such waiting it can seem like God is silent. We might fear that God has forgotten us and feel too discouraged to even turn to God for help. Or we may turn to God only to become more frightened and dismayed because our prayers for help or deliverance seem to go unanswered.
Not all waiting is painful. Sometimes waiting is a time of great anticipation outwardly, such as when we’re planning a wedding, expecting a new child in the family, or preparing for an exciting change of job or location. But even these happier times of waiting can be full of anxieties. We may fear that something will go terribly wrong. Or that we are making the wrong decision. Or that we will not be adequate for the task. Or that we will not have the emotional or social skills to weather the adaptation. These fears are often hidden, sometimes even from ourselves, but they can make even times of excited waiting very difficult. And again we may find inwardly that we are having trouble trusting God to protect and provide for us.
How is it possible to meet God in our times of waiting? How do we meet God when God seems unresponsive to our desperate need?
The God of the Bible is the God who has promised to always be with us. Always. Even in our times of waiting. Even when our situation is desperate or our heart is full of anxiety. Even when we believe God is silent or unresponsive to our need or inattentive to our future. Even when we feel like we have lost all faith.
The following studies are designed to help you give voice to your distress and gain perspective on your fears in times of waiting, and to open your heart and mind to the One who is with you always.
Suggestions for Individual Study
1. As you begin each study, pray that God will speak to you through his Word.
2. Read the introduction to the study and respond to the personal reflection question or exercise. This is designed to help you focus on God and on the theme of the study.
3. Each study deals with a particular passage so that you can delve into the author’s meaning in that context. Read and reread the passage to be studied. The questions are written using the language of the New International Version, so you may wish to use that version of the Bible. The New Revised Standard Version is also recommended.
4. This is an inductive Bible study, designed to help you discover for yourself what Scripture is saying. The study includes three types of questions. Observation questions ask about the basic facts: who, what, when, where and how. Interpretation questions delve into the meaning of the passage. Application questions help you discover the implications of the text for growing in Christ. These three keys unlock the treasures of Scripture.
Write your answers to the questions in the spaces provided or in a personal journal. Writing can bring clarity and deeper understanding of yourself and of God’s Word.
5. It might be good to have a Bible dictionary handy. Use it to look up any unfamiliar words, names or places.
6. Use the prayer suggestion to guide you in thanking God for what you have learned and to pray about the applications that have come to mind.
7. You may want to go on to the suggestion under “Now or Later,” or you may want to use that idea for your next study.
1
When Waiting Is Difficult
Psalm 13
We do not like to wait. Whether it is being put on hold on the phone or standing in a long line at the store, waiting irritates us.
Sometimes, though, waiting is more than an annoyance. Sometimes it’s torturous. Waiting for a loved one to come out of surgery. Waiting for the results of a biopsy taken to test for cancer. Waiting for an answer to a prayer we have been praying for months or even years. This kind of waiting is difficult because it is full of fear. We are left in these times with terrible questions about our future—and terrible questions about God.
Scripture testifies to these times of painful waiting, putting into words our anguished fears. Wonderfully, Scripture also offers us hope and strength for these times of difficult waiting.
Group Discussion. What kinds of situations are hardest for you to wait patiently in? Why?
Personal Reflection. Think of a time when you waited a long time for an answer to prayer. What anxieties did you experience while waiting? How did this time of waiting affect your sense of God’s presence with you?
In this psalm, the psalmist voices the great distress he is experiencing in a time of waiting. In doing so, he offers us permission and language to express our struggles to God. Read Psalm 13.
1. How would you title each of the three sections of this psalm (vv. 1–2, vv. 3–4 and vv. 5–6)?
2. What do we learn from the first section (vv. 1–2) about how waiting affects the psalmist mentally and emotionally?
3. How does the experience of waiting affect how he experiences God (v. 1)?
4. How does the psalmist’s mental, emotional and spiritual experience while waiting compare with your experiences during times of difficult waiting?
5. What does the psalmist ask for in verse 3?
6. What is the psalmist convinced will happen if God doesn’t answer him (v. 4)?
7. What does the psalmist commit to doing in the final section of the psalm?
8. What does he reaffirm about God?
9. How might remembering these truths about God help you when waiting is difficult?
10. How can this text be a resource to you in your times of waiting?
11. In a time of quiet join the psalmist in his prayer found in verse 3: “Look on me and answer, Lord my God.” Sit in silence before God, perhaps with your hands open on your lap, with this prayer in your heart. Share or write about your experience in this time of quiet before God.
Express your longing to know God’s presence with you in whatever difficulty or challenge you are facing.
Now or Later
Using Psalm 13 as a model, journal a prayer. Express to God whatever difficulty you are experiencing. Ask for God’s help and for the faith to trust that God is with you. Reaffirm what you know to be true about who God is.
2
Wisdom in Waiting
Proverbs 3:1–12
Waiting often causes anxiety. We plead with God to hurry and act even while we battle a growing fear that God has deserted us. To cope, we may try to take control of things that we have no ability to control, often causing harm to ourselves or others. We can become demanding and manipulative in attempts to make things go the way we think they ought to go. And when our attempts fail, anger may take hold and lead us to say and do things that are hurtful. The end result will likely be exhaustion and despair.
Wisdom teaches another way: wait for God to lead, for God to guide, for God to act. Rather than relying on ourselves to try to control things that are out of our control, wisdom calls us to depend on God. Rather than relying on our very limited understanding, wisdom instructs us to trust God’s omniscience and goodness. In times of waiting we are invited to choose wisdom, to ask for deeper trust in, and deeper surrender to, the One who loves us and longs to show us the way.
Group Discussion. Imagine you’re giving a friend, a daughter or son, or a grandchild instruction in three or four key points of wisdom for life. What would you say?
Personal Reflection. Think of a time of waiting in your life. What wisdom did you receive from God during that time?
Our text—words on living wisely from a loving father to his son—teaches us to choose wisdom in our waiting by “[trusting] in the Lord with all [our] heart” rather than placing our confidence in our own abilities. Read Proverbs 3:1–12.
1. List all that the father advises the son to do.
2. What benefits does the father say will come from following this wisdom?
3. What reactions might a son have to hearing these instructions on wisdom?
4. What might it mean to “bind [love and faithfulness] around your neck” and to “write them on the tablet of your heart” (v. 3)?
5. What does it mean to “trust in the Lord with all your heart” (v. 5)?
6. What might it mean for a person to acknowledge God in all their ways (v. 6)?
7. Which of the instructions listed are difficult for you to follow?
What makes those particular instructions difficult?
8. Which of these instructions speaks to you the most at this time in your life?
9. Spend a few minutes contemplating the list you made in response to question one. Ask God to remind you of ways you are following the instructions in Proverbs 3. Write what comes to your mind.
10. Ask God to show you where God would have you change. Write your response to what it seems God is saying to you.
11. How might these instructions be especially important for you in times of waiting?
12. How might following this wisdom lead to a greater sense of God’s presence with you?
Thank God for the privilege of relying on God and God’s wisdom in all you do.
Now or Later
Focus on one or two of the instructions from this text this week. Each day put it into practice. Make a journal entry at the end of each day about the impact that following this wisdom had on your day.
3
Waiting for God
Psalm 42
In times of waiting, our focus is often on future events. We wonder what will happen next. We wonder if the changes we hope for will ever come.
But there is more going on in our minds and hearts in times of waiting; there’s something more that we are waiting for. Our greatest need and longing in times of waiting (and in all times) is for God. When we quiet ourselves during these times, this deeper experience of waiting begins to emerge.
Something happens to us in this kind of waiting. We are brought to attention. Our hearts and minds and spirits focus on what matters most, on what is most real, on our deepest longings for God.
When we wait as if we are watching for our soul’s true love to appear, we find that the focus of our waiting is not so much about the future as it is about this present moment. This moment we can be right here, right now with our need, with our hunger, with our thirst for the One who is our Home, our Hope, our Help.
This kind of waiting is what the psalmist gives voice to in Psalm 42.
Group Discussion. Reflect on a time when you were separated from someone you love. What was the experience of that separation like for you? How would you describe the experience of being reunited with this loved one?
Personal Reflection. Think about the idea of God being your “soul’s true love.” Do you tend to view and relate to God that way? Why or why not?
In this text the psalmist struggles to hang on to hope, giving voice to an experience that is often a part of waiting for all of us. Read Psalm 42.
1. What words and images does the psalmist use to describe his emotional, physical and spiritual experience of waiting for and longing for God?
2. Why do you think the experience of feeling separated from God creates so much distress for the psalmist?
3. Given the descriptions of what it can be like to wait for and long for God, how difficult is it, in your experience, to stay aware of these deep feelings when you’re in the middle of a season of waiting?
4. What value might there be in staying aware of these feelings and even giving voice to them?
5. Which of the psalmist’s descriptions of longing for God do you most relate to?
6. What were men saying to the psalmist about God?
How do you think their words added to the psalmist’s distress?
7. What contrast does the psalmist draw in verses 3 and 4 between what he remembers and what he is currently experiencing?
8. What truths does the psalmist return to in order to encourage himself in this time of waiting and longing for a sense of God’s presence?
9. What truths and experiences of God do you find yourself returning to in times of waiting and longing for a sense of God’s presence?
10. What does the psalmist say in verse 8 that God is doing for him even through this time of waiting?
11. What can you see God doing in you and for you in your own time of waiting?
Express your longing for God directly to God.
Now or Later
Read the first two verses of this psalm and sit quietly in openness to God for two or three minutes. Repeat this three more times. Write about whatever you experienced in this time.
4
Waiting Together
Job 2:11–13; 6:1–17; 13:1–5
Times of waiting can be very difficult. But waiting with the support of others can literally make an unbearable situation bearable. One of the ways that God is present to us in times of waiting is through the compassion, kindness and respectfulness of others; they minister the loving presence of God to us.
In his book The View from the Hearse, Joseph Bayly describes an experience with a friend who was not able to be supportive to him and a friend who was:
I was sitting, torn by grief. Someone came and talked to me of God’s dealings, of why it happened, of hope beyond the grave. He talked constantly, he said things I knew were true. I was unmoved, except to wish he’d go away. He finally did.
Another came and sat beside me. He didn’t talk. He didn’t ask leading questions. He just sat beside me for an hour and more, listened when I said something, answered briefly, prayed simply, left. I was moved. I was comforted. I hated to see him go.
The friend who made a positive difference was the one who was fully present to him in his pain. Friends like that are a true gift in the midst of our times of waiting.
Group Discussion. When have you seen well-meaning “support” cause more pain and hurt instead of helping someone? Where did the person offering support go wrong?
Personal Reflection. Imagine yourself waiting by yourself for a friend or family member to go through surgery. What thoughts and feelings come to you as you picture this? Now imagine yourself waiting with a supportive friend. What would you want from your friend? What would it feel like to receive that from your friend?
Job’s experience of friends who sat with him in his time of waiting for God to answer his heart’s cry can both encourage and instruct us. At first these friends were truly present with Job, but they then began to withdraw from him and his pain, offering unwanted advice and criticism. Read Job 2:11–13; 6:1–17; 13:1–5.
1. Job has suffered unspeakable losses. When his friends come to visit him, what is their initial response (2:11–13)?
2. What did these friends communicate to Job through that initial response (2:11–13)?
3. After some time, Job speaks in anguish (Job 3), and his friends begin to offer advice and correction. What is Job’s response to them (6:1–3, 14–17; 13:1–5)?
4. What do you think Job is asking of his friends in verse 6:14?
5. In Job 13:1–5 Job states that his friends’ silence was much wiser than their words. Why is this so often true in times of great anguish?
6. Why is it sometimes difficult to listen in silent empathy and compassion to a friend’s “impetuous” words that seem to indicate a “forsaking of the fear of the Almighty”?
7. What does it feel like to be the one receiving the gifts of silent empathy and compassion from others while we wait?
8. How do you offer the kind of support Job was asking for to your friends? Think of specific examples of times you have offered or could offer this kind of support.
9. How do your friends offer you this kind of support? Think of specific examples.
10. How might this kind of support from a friend help you to experience God in times of waiting?
11. In what situation in your life right now could you use support from a friend?
Pray for your friends, thanking God for the gifts of help and support you each receive from the other.
Now or Later
Spend some time with a friend this week, listening with compassion and respect to whatever they are going through and inviting them to do the same for you.
5
Waiting with Hope
Luke 1:1–25, 57–80
The Gospel of Luke begins with the story of a promise within a promise. In the opening scene we meet a man named Zechariah who has been waiting for many years with his wife to be blessed with a child. He and his wife have also been waiting, along with all the people of Israel, for the promised Messiah.
Luke recounts how an angel comes to Zechariah and announces to him that what he has been waiting for is about to happen. He and his wife will have a son. And that son will prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah.
But the waiting has been long, and it is not easy to wait with hope. Over time hope tends to dim and discouragement, doubt and even despair begin to set in. By the time the angel appears to Zechariah, he has all but given up. The message is almost too much to grasp, too much to hope for; he expresses doubt that the events will actually come to pass.
But as the story unfolds we are reminded again that our hope is in God—God who is lovingly, powerfully active in our lives, in our story, in history.
Group Discussion. How would you define hope?
Personal Reflection. Why is it sometimes so difficult to hang on to hope in times of waiting?
In the text for this study we listen in as an angel tells Zechariah that his time of waiting is about to become a time of receiving. And we watch as Zechariah struggles to hope. Read Luke 1:1–25, 57–80.
1. What title would you give to the first section of this text (vv. 1–25)?
What title would you give to the second section (vv. 57–80)?
2. Elizabeth and Zechariah had been praying and waiting for a child for decades. They had probably given up all hope. The nation of Israel had been waiting for the promised Messiah for hundreds of years and may have been struggling to hang on to hope. In what way can you relate to this kind of experience?
3. Put yourself in Zechariah’s place. What do you imagine he is experiencing during his encounter with the angel?
4. How might the “sign” of being temporarily mute have been a gift to Zechariah in his time of waiting for their son to be born?
5. What does the angel say that the promised son will do to prepare people for the coming of the Messiah (v. 17)?
6. What does Zechariah say that his son will do to prepare people for the Lord (vv. 76–77)?
7. Which of these preparations for receiving more of God might God be doing in your life at this time?
8. How have you seen God prepare you for gifts from God that you’ve been waiting for?
9. The two primary human actors in this story are Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth. But the primary Actor in this story is clearly God. Take a few minutes to reread the story with this perspective in mind. How does this perspective change how you see this story?
10. How does seeing God as the major Actor in this story change how you see your own story?
11. Verses 78 and 79 offer a powerful image of God acting in ways that move us from hopelessness to hope. Reread these verses out loud slowly. Sit quietly and prayerfully with this image. Invite God to speak to you. Share or write about whatever came to you in this time.
12. How does this story offer hope to you in your time of waiting?
Ask God to fill you with hope and to speak to you of God’s faithfulness, trustworthiness and purposefulness in the midst of your waiting.
Now or Later
Read Psalm 33:20–22 several times, sitting in silence for two or three minutes between readings, inviting God to open your mind and heart to whatever God has for you.
We wait in hope for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord,
even as we put our hope in you.
6
God’s Presence and Purposes in Our Waiting
Genesis 37:12–36; 39:1–23; 50:15–21
Joseph was a man who was hated and betrayed by his brothers and then later falsely accused and put in prison for seven years. Yet all the time, God was with Joseph, unfolding a greater plan.
It could not have been easy for Joseph to stay connected to the reality of God’s presence with him in all he suffered, any more than it is for us in times of distress. Yet we are called to trust that God is with us, that God is good and loving, and that God is at work in ways unknown to us, bringing good even out of our times of distress.
Group Discussion. When you think about times of waiting in the past, what made it difficult to trust that God was with you? What helped you in those times to trust that God was with you?
Personal Reflection. Think of a time when you felt unsure of God’s loving presence with you. What was the experience like for you? Now think of a time when you had a sense of God’s presence with you. What happened that reassured you that God was with you?
The life story of Joseph is a story filled with heartbreak, betrayal, injustice and waiting. In this study we follow Joseph through a series of traumatic life events, any of which could have left him believing that God had abandoned him. Yet in Joseph’s times of waiting for deliverance, God was with him, working to bring blessing to many. Read Genesis 37:12–36; 39:1–23 and 50:15–21.
1. What scenes stand out to you as you read through these stories from Joseph’s life?
2. From a human point of view, what might Joseph have thought and felt about himself, other people and life in general through these experiences of betrayal and injustice?
3. What might he have been thinking and feeling about God?
4. What parts of Joseph’s experiences can you relate to? Explain.
5. Some time later, Joseph was able to see God’s hand at work bringing good out of what others meant for harm. How did Joseph respond to his brothers (50:15–21)?
6. What do you think made it possible for Joseph to respond in this way to his brothers?
7. What thoughts do you have about Joseph’s conclusion that what others meant for harm, God intended for good?
8. What does this story show us about God?
9. In what ways have you seen God at work in times of difficult waiting?
How have those experiences (or your lack of such an experience) changed your times of waiting?
10. In what ways have your experiences of God’s presence with you changed you?
11. How might this story of Joseph help you trust that God is present even in times of difficult waiting?
Express your gratitude to God for God’s presence with you in times of waiting and always.
Now or Later
Read more of the story of Joseph in chapters 40–47 of Genesis, looking for evidence of God’s plan unfolding and God’s presence with him.
7
The Gifts in Waiting
Psalm 40
We have seen that when we are going through a time of difficult waiting, on the deepest level what we are really longing and waiting for is an experience of God-with-us-as-we-wait.
When, by grace, we encounter God in our waiting, we are changed. The gifts we receive in these times of experiencing God’s tender mercies toward us can have a profound and lasting impact on our awareness of God’s personal love for us. This deeper trust in God’s unfailing love, in turn, can strengthen us, heal us and free us in ways we might never have known otherwise.
Group Discussion. How do you tend to express your gratitude?
Personal Reflection. Think of a time recently when you felt grateful. What was the experience of gratitude like for you?
In this study we join the psalmist in his boundless gratitude to God for God’s many kindnesses in times of waiting—kindnesses which have allowed us to experience God-with-us, loving us and caring for us. Read Psalm 40.
1. What does the psalmist say that God has done for him (vv. 1–3)?
2. When have you sensed that God heard your cry in a time of waiting? Explain.
3. What experiences have you had of God lifting you out of a slimy pit of mud and mire and giving you a firm place to stand?
4. What new song has God put in your heart?
5. What is the psalmist’s response to the gifts he has received from God (vv. 4–5, 9–10)?
6. In what specific ways have you responded to the gifts God has given you in times of waiting?
7. In verses 6–8 the psalmist makes the statement that God does not desire religious observances (sacrifices and offerings) as an expression of our gratitude but instead wants our heart. What contrast would you draw between verbal expressions of gratitude and the kind of loving surrender (as an expression of gratitude) that is described in verses 6–8?
8. Why do you think the psalmist is making this point that God does not desire our religious observances but instead desires our wills and our hearts?
9. What would it mean to “desire to do [God’s] will” and to have God’s law “within [your] heart” (v. 8)?
10. What does the psalmist continue to ask for from God in verses 11–17?
11. What do you want to continue to ask God for at this time?
Thank God for all the gifts you have received from God in your times of waiting.
Now or Later
Paraphrase verses 6–8 to make the statements more personal for you. As you are ready, pray this prayer of surrender every day as an outpouring of your love and gratitude for God’s personal love and care for you.
8
The God Who Waits
Luke 15:11–32
Waiting through difficult times can be so challenging that we might sometimes feel that the waiting itself is a form of suffering. And indeed, it can be. This is, in part, why we often experience renewed hope and strength when we are able to trust that God is with us to help us, keep us and bless us in our waiting.
We may be equally moved to learn that God knows what it is like to wait. In one of the stories that Jesus told, he described God as the waiting Father. God, our Creator, our Sustainer, our Life, waits for us.
As you study this powerful passage, may the beauty of the grace of our God speak to you in ways that allow you to truly meet God anew in your times of waiting.
Group Discussion. What words would you use to describe an ideal relationship between a father and child?
Personal Reflection. What words would you use to describe your relationship with your father?
The story that Jesus tells in this text is often referred to as the story of the prodigal son. But it most importantly paints a stunning portrait of God, the waiting Father, who waits for us, scans the horizon looking for us and runs to embrace us when we are still far from home. Read Luke 15:11–32.
1. What words would you use to describe the two sons in this story?
2. How are they different, and how are they the same?
3. In what way do you see yourself in each of them?
4. What character traits are evident in this father’s waiting?
5. What responses do you have to the father’s waiting?
6. What did the father do when his waiting was over?
What emotions does the father’s reaction stir in you?
7. What does Jesus teach us in this story about who God is?
8. What does Jesus teach us in this story about how God sees us?
9. How does Jesus’ picture of who God is compare to your images of God?
10. How does this story’s portrayal of how God sees us compare to your ideas about how God sees you?
11. How might knowing that God is a God who waits speak to you in your times of waiting?
Thank God for being a God who waits for you with love and compassion.
Now or Later
In a time of quiet, let yourself reflect on the following images from Jesus’ story:
Put yourself in this story as the son or daughter who is returning home after a time of doing things your own way. You have been longing for home, but no longer feel worthy. You have a speech planned about how unworthy you are. But suddenly, you see God, your true Father, running to meet you on the road. His arms are open, his eyes are full of joy, he calls your name with great tenderness. Let him wrap his arms around you. Listen to him say, “Welcome home, my dear child. I am overjoyed to see you. I love you.”[1]
[1] Ryan, Juanita. Waiting for God: 8 Studies for Individuals or Groups: With Notes for Leaders. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Connect: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2013. Print. A LifeGuide Bible Study.
A LifeGuide® Bible Study
DISTORTED IMAGES OF SELF
Restoring Our Vision
8 STUDIES FOR INDIVIDUALS OR GROUPS
Dale & Juanita Ryan
Contents
Getting the Most Out of Distorted Images of Self
1 Unlovable Versus Loved
Ephesians 3:14–21
2 Worthless Versus Valued
Luke 15:1–2, 8–10
3 Self-Reliant Versus God-Reliant
Isaiah 30:15–21
4 Condemned Versus Forgiven
1 John 1:5–2:11
5 Irreparable Versus Repairable
Psalm 30
6 Forgotten Versus Remembered
Genesis 16
7 Insignificant Versus Significant
Matthew 5:1–10, 14–16
8 Disconnected Versus Bonded in Love
1 John 4:7–21
Getting the Most Out of Distorted Images of Self
The way we think and feel about ourselves is one of the most important things about us. Our self-images have an enormous impact on our lives. Among other things, our sense of self affects our peace of mind, our creativity and our ability to engage meaningfully in the world. Perhaps most important, it affects our relationships with others, including our relationship with God.
Self-image is not a simple thing. Our ideas about ourselves tend to be complex and even conflicting, to the point that it is not uncommon for us to present one version of ourselves to the outside world and struggle with another version in private.
Our self-images tend to be constructed from our complicated emotional and relational histories. All of our relationships and experiences throughout our lives are woven into our self-concept, but our most foundational self-images, both positive and negative, take root in early life.
As children we come to conclusions about ourselves based on the mosaic of experiences we have with others. These conclusions are not logical, rational deductions. They are more like impressions of ourselves in the context of life events and interactions with others. They are interpretations made at a time when we had a very limited maturity or understanding. As a result, some of the most foundational aspects of our self-image are constructed from our limited childhood perspectives.
Unfortunately, many of us have experiences in early life that lead us to see ourselves in negative ways. These conclusions can develop into ongoing distortions in our sense of self.
Because we do not simply outgrow our distorted images of self, and because these distortions tend to be hidden from others and often from ourselves‚ these components of our self-image are capable of having a significant impact on what we do and think in all aspects of our lives. They can form a kind of grid through which we see ourselves well into our adulthood and potentially all the days of our lives.
Our distorted self-images are based in deep-seated fears. These fears are almost always too uncomfortable or too painful to expose to other people and often too uncomfortable or too painful to stay fully aware of ourselves. For that reason we develop ways to protect ourselves from our fears. If, for example, we live with a distorted self-image that we are unlovable, we may drive ourselves to the point of exhaustion to earn the love we fear can never be ours. Similarly, if we see ourselves as worthless, we might either do all we can to prove to others that we are valuable, or we might despair of being valued and settle for depressed, secluded lives.
Probably the most important thing to emphasize about distorted self-images is that they are not really who we are. Under all of our pretense and defensiveness, and deeper than our worst fears and distortions about ourselves, is a self that God created in God’s own image. We are God’s children‚ loved beyond our wildest imaginings, valued beyond telling, made to live in joyful reliance on our Maker, freely forgiven, fully repairable, always remembered and seen, significant in our capacity to be part of God’s presence in this world, and made to live in loving community with others.
The purpose of this LifeGuide is to help you see yourself through God’s eyes of love. Thomas Merton once described the important healing work we have to do in order to live in the truth of who we really are: “We must cast off our false, exterior self like the cheap and showy garment that it is. We must find our real self in its very great and very simple dignity: created to be a child of God, and capable of loving with something of God’s own sincerity.”
Because our distorted images of self are often rooted in painful emotional experiences, identifying them and pursuing healing can be an emotionally challenging experience. If you find this to be the case, we encourage you to seek out the support of a trusted friend, pastor, spiritual director or counselor. It is also important to remember that healing deeply from distorted images of self will likely mean healing slowly. None of us can change our distorted images of self simply by an act of our will or by our own effort. What we can do is invite God to heal us and seek the support we need in the process. Our prayer is that these studies will be used by the Spirit to encourage you on your journey of identifying some of your distorted images of self and in gradually displacing these distortions with biblically accurate images of yourself.
As you study these texts it is our prayer that you will learn to think and feel about yourself in ways that are consistent with the ways God thinks and feels about you. Our prayer is that you will hear God saying to you: “I love you. I value you. You are my very own, dearly loved child. This is who you are.”
May your vision or who you are be renewed as you come to see yourself through God’s eyes of love.
Suggestions for Individual Study
1. As you begin each study, pray that God will speak to you through his Word.
2. Read the introduction to the study and respond to the personal reflection question or exercise. This is designed to help you focus on God and on the theme of the study.
3. Each study deals with a particular passage so that you can delve into the author’s meaning in that context. Read and reread the passage to be studied. The questions are written using the language of the New International Version, so you may wish to use that version of the Bible. The New Revised Standard Version is also recommended.
4. This is an inductive Bible study, designed to help you discover for yourself what Scripture is saying. The study includes three types of questions. Observation questions ask about the basic facts: who, what, when, where and how. Interpretation questions delve into the meaning of the passage. Application questions help you discover the implications of the text for growing in Christ. These three keys unlock the treasures of Scripture.
Write your answers to the questions in the spaces provided or in a personal journal. Writing can bring clarity and deeper understanding of yourself and of God’s Word.
5. It might be good to have a Bible dictionary handy. Use it to look up any unfamiliar words, names or places.
6. Use the prayer suggestion to guide you in thanking God for what you have learned and to pray about the applications that have come to mind.
7. You may want to go on to the suggestion under “Now or Later,” or you may want to use that idea for your next study.
DISTORTED IMAGES OF SELF
Restoring Our Vision
1
Unlovable Versus Loved
Ephesians 3:14–21
We are creatures. We are created in love by God who is love. We are the much-loved children of God. Scripture teaches us that all that love is, God is toward us—patient, kind, respectful, self-giving, keeping no record of wrongs, protective, hopeful. God’s love for us is a love that is steadfast and unshakable. It is a love that endures forever.
Yet we struggle to trust that this is true. We may believe that God is loving, but we may not be able to live in the joy and peace of this reality because we see ourselves as unlovable. We may have constructed a self-image that assumes that something is so wrong with us that no one who knows us fully could possibly love us. Each of us has a unique story of how these false images come to take on the force of a foundational truth in our lives. But whatever our story—and however much we believe these distortions—they are not the truth about who we are.
God, who is love, loves us. This is good news. It is powerful news—powerful enough to compete with the distorted images of ourselves which seem to exercise control over our lives. It is the good news that can set us free to be the much loved children our Creator made us to be.
Group Discussion. What negative things have you heard other people say about themselves—things which you could tell they believed—but which you could see were not true?
Personal Reflection. What negative things do you find yourself saying to yourself about yourself?
Write a more grace-full message to replace each of the negative things you say about yourself. (This might be difficult, but give it a try.)
The text for this study is a prayer on behalf of the people at the church in Ephesus. It is a prayer that they would come to know deeply and fully the powerful truth of God’s great love for them as expressed in Christ. Read Ephesians 3:14–21.
1. This prayer is directed to God the Father. What do verses 14–15 and 20 say about God?
2. Make a list of all the specific requests expressed in this prayer.
3. What thoughts do you have about this list of requests?
4. What is your thought about what verse 20 states on the heels of making all these requests?
5. What might it mean for God to strengthen us with power through the Spirit in our inner being as a way to make us ready for Christ to dwell in our hearts?
6. What might it mean for Christ to dwell in our hearts through faith, in the context of all that is being prayed here?
7. How is the love of God in Christ described in verses 18 and 19?
8. How do these words which describe God’s love affect you?
9. What might it mean to be “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God”?
10. Sit for a few minutes of quiet and meditate on the image found in verse 17: “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love …” As you can, see yourself as a parched plant being transplanted into the soil of God’s rich, vast love for you. You are parched and dying because you have believed yourself unlovable in some way. But now you are being planted in the heart of God’s love. Slowly, let your roots relax, and begin to take in the nourishment available in the amazing soil of love. Drink it in. Let it strengthen you with new life, new hope, new joy. Write about your experience of meditating on this image.
11. What do you imagine it would be like for you to be filled with God’s love?
Use the prayer in this text as the basis of a prayer for yourself to know God’s love.
Now or Later
Sit with the image in question 10 for a few minutes each day this week. Continue to write about your experience of letting your roots sink deeply into the soil of God’s rich, vast love.
DISTORTED IMAGES OF SELF
Restoring Our Vision
2
Worthless Versus Valued
Luke 15:1–2, 8–10
We are treasured by God. We are held in high esteem by our Maker. The sweeping narrative of Scripture is that God made us in God’s image and seeks to live in close relationship with us. Scripture shows us a God who freely gives to us, not only good gifts but also God’s very self.
We came from God. We are a part of God. We are valued by God. This value is not something we earn. It is not part of an “if-then” clause—if we do this or that, then God will value us. It is a given. It is part of the structure of the universe. We are valued.
Yet a large number of us spend our lives chasing the hope that maybe if we accomplish certain things, then we will be valued. If we are smart enough, knowledgeable enough, good looking enough, rich enough, thin enough, spiritual enough, caring enough, giving enough, then maybe we will earn some sense of worth. We strive to earn what is already ours. We are valuable. We are valued. This gift is ours to receive with humility, wonder and joy. It is ours to live in—freeing us to abandon all competition and comparison with others who are equally valued by our Maker. Freeing us to treat all others with the same great value our Creator bestows on us.
Group Discussion. What kinds of things might communicate to a child his or her value?
Personal Reflection. What moments come to mind of times when you felt you were being treated by someone as having little or no value?
What moments come to mind of times when you have felt valued by someone?
The text for this study is one of a trilogy of stories that Jesus told about God, who values us highly. In one story God, represented as a father, demonstrates to both a son who left home and a son who stayed home their great value as God’s much-loved children. In another story God, represented as a shepherd, goes in search of the one sheep that strayed from the group and got lost. And in this story God, represented as a woman, sweeps the floors in search of the missing silver coin. Read Luke 15:1–2, 8–10.
1. Who were the two primary groups in the audience when Jesus told this story?
How were they outwardly different from each other?
How might they have been similar?
2. What specific pictures and ideas come to mind as you read this story about God as the woman who lights a lamp and sweeps in search of the lost silver coin?
3. If you were going to give voice to the lost coin, what might the coin be saying to itself about its value while it is lost?
4. How might the image of God as the woman who sweeps have been heard by the various members of Jesus’ audience?
5. How might the image of us as the lost coin have been heard by the various members of Jesus’ audience at the time?
6. What does this story tell us about God?
7. How does this compare and contrast with how you see God?
8. What does this story tell us about how God sees us?
9. How does this compare and contrast with how you see yourself?
10. In a time of quiet, imagine yourself in this story as a valuable silver coin that has been knocked off the table and has rolled into a dark corner where you have been gathering dust and grime. You are powerless to help yourself. And you have lost your shine and all sense of your value. But the woman to whom you belong lights a lamp and picks up a broom and begins to sweep the floors in search of you because of your great value. When the woman finds you, she picks you up and gently rubs the dust and grime away until your silver shine is restored. Then she throws a party, calling all her friends to celebrate. Let yourself be held in those tender, powerful hands. Let yourself experience the party in your honor. Write about your experience.
11. How might knowing these truths about how God sees you and values you make a difference in your life?
Thank God for valuing you so highly. Invite God to help you live in the truth of your great value to God.
Now or Later
Use the meditation from question 10 again. Allow yourself to experience your value to God, as described by this story.
DISTORTED IMAGES OF SELF
Restoring Our Vision
3
Self-Reliant Versus God-Reliant
Isaiah 30:15–21
We are creatures. We receive in each breath, in each beat of our hearts, the gift of life from our loving Creator. In much the same way that we are designed to be sustained and strengthened by the regular intake of oxygen, we are designed to be sustained and strengthened by the ongoing intake of God’s help and guidance. We are designed to live in reliance on our Maker. It is in this reliance on God that our lives are able to become the loving, joyful, rich experience they were meant to be.
Scripture teaches us that God created us to need God’s help. It also teaches us that God longs to help us. Yet, all too often, we resist these good gifts from God. We resist them in part because we live with a distorted view of ourselves as self-reliant. There are various reasons why we might be attached to this image of ourselves. Self-reliance might seem like what everyone, including God, expects of us. Self-reliance might seem strong, whereas reliance on God might seem weak. Reliance on ourselves might seem like the only way to be in charge, whereas reliance on God might seem like giving up control. For some of us the thought of trusting anyone to be there for us, including God, might seem impossible. We may have concluded early in life that we are on our own, that we need to take care of ourselves.
God calls us out of this kind of distorted self-reliance and into the truth of dependence on our loving Creator. God calls us in love to know that we are not on our own. God is eager to help us and care for us.
Group Discussion. Think about walking with a young child in an area that has major traffic hazards. What would it be like for you if the child took off and ran ahead of you, saying he wanted to do it by himself?
Personal Reflection. In terms of your relationship with God, think of a time when you acted like the child who runs off on his or her own. What was the experience like?
In the text for this study we hear God calling us in love to ask for the care, help and guidance we need. We hear God confronting our resistance and reminding us that God is always ready and eager to help us. Read Isaiah 30:15–21.
1. In verses 15–17, how would you contrast what the Lord is calling the people to do with what the people were doing?
2. In what ways do you relate to what the people were doing?
3. What does it mean in verse 17 that “a thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away”?
4. How do the practices mentioned in verse 15 relate to living in reliance on God rather than ourselves?
5. In your experience, what is difficult about the practices of repentance, rest, quietness and trust?
6. In your experience, what are the benefits of practicing repentance, rest, quietness and trust?
7. What do we learn about God in verses 18–21?
8. What promises are made in verses 18–21?
9. Why might it be so important that we actually ask for God’s help?
10. To repent is to turn around, to change the direction we are headed. God calls us to give up our distortions of being self-reliant and to turn to God to experience, instead, that we are creatures made to rely on God. In a time of quiet, invite God to show you how you need to repent of your self-reliance and learn anew what it is to rely on God. Write whatever you sense God is showing you.
11. God’s call to repentance is a call to rest, to quietness and to trust. It is a call to give up all the hard work that self-reliance requires and to “let go and let God.” In a second time of quiet, let yourself rest before God as you talk honestly with God about both your fears and your longings to live in trusting reliance on God. Listen to God’s voice of compassion and guidance speaking to you. Write about your experience.
Thank God for God’s compassion toward you, and for God’s desire to guide you and help you.
Now or Later
Continue to use the focused prayers of questions 10 and 11 throughout the week, writing about your experience.
DISTORTED IMAGES OF SELF
Restoring Our Vision
4
Condemned Versus Forgiven
1 John 1:5–2:11
God is a forgiving God. Scripture teaches us that God “remembers our sins no more,” that God “freely pardons” and that while we are actively sinning God is actively loving us. Yet we struggle to live in this truth. We struggle with the burdens of guilt and shame. We see ourselves as condemned.
Imagine the difference it would make in our lives if we lived every day with a conscious awareness that we are fully, freely forgiven by God. Imagine for a moment what our lives would be like if shame had no power over us, if guilt did not lead us to despair and if despair did not reinforce our depressive tendencies. God’s desire is that we receive the gift of forgiveness and the freedom it brings from the many burdens we carry.
The path toward the freedom of forgiveness is the path of honesty and humility. As we face the truth about the harms we have done, confess the many ways we have failed to love and make amends to those we have harmed, the darkness will pass and the true Light will shine.
Group Discussion. How would you define and compare the terms condemned and forgiven?
Personal Reflection. How might it affect you on a daily basis if you feel condemned? How might it affect you on a daily basis to know yourself fully forgiven?
The text for this study confronts our denial about our hurtful, destructive, self-serving ways and calls us to acknowledge the truth of our sin. It reassures us of God’s forgiveness and instructs us to take ongoing inventory of our failure to love, even as it calls us to live more and more fully in the light and love of God. Read 1 John 1:5–2:11.
1. This text begins by presenting us with a contrast between lying to ourselves about the sin in our lives and telling the truth about our sin. In your own words, how would you summarize what is being said here?
2. List all the reasons you can think of why we might lie to ourselves, to others and to God about the sin in our lives.
3. List all the reasons you can think of—including those given in the text—for telling the truth about the sin in our lives.
4. According to this text, what is the relationship between sin and failure to love?
5. How does this understanding of sin compare with your thoughts about sin?
6. What does it mean to hate someone?
What does it mean to love someone?
7. According to this text, what does hate do to us?
8. First John 2:8 talks about a process of change that is going on in us. What is it that John suggests is happening in us?
What do you think this means in practical terms?
9. The text promises us the gift of forgiveness and teaches us that the way to experience God’s forgiveness is through honest confession to God. What would it be like to live in the grace of God’s full and free forgiveness?
10. In a time of quiet, reflect on God as a God who freely, fully forgives. Let yourself reflect on the light of God as not condemning us but as healing and freeing us to love like God loves. See yourself sitting in the healing, loving presence of this light. As you bask in the light of God’s love for you, ask God to show you where you are failing to love in your life. Write whatever comes to mind.
11. Acknowledge your failures to love in a time of confession to God. Receive the gift of God’s full forgiveness, offered freely to you. Focus on the image of the darkness of hate (resentment, judgment of others, withholding of love) passing from you and the light of God’s love filling you. Write whatever came to your mind as you prayed.
Thank God for the gift of forgiveness.
Now or Later
Use questions 10 and 11 in a time of prayer each day this week. Write about your experience of doing this.
DISTORTED IMAGES OF SELF
Restoring Our Vision
5
Irreparable Versus Repairable
Psalm 30
God is our Healer and our Help. Scripture teaches us that God is able to rescue us, restore us, transform us and make us new. God is able to replace our fear with peace and joy. God is able to remove our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. God is able to heal our shame and guilt and to set us free to know ourselves as loved and valued.
This is all very good news. It is especially good news for those of us who see ourselves as damaged beyond repair. It is good news for those of us who fear that we are beyond help, including God’s help.
We may put a lot of energy into hiding our sense of irreparability. We may try to cover up our fears about ourselves with attempts to look good. But the distortion of ourselves as irreparable lingers and drives us to work harder and harder while our fears increase more and more.
As we have seen in the previous studies, Scripture reminds us that we are loved, we are valued, we are not on our own, we are forgiven. In this study we are reminded that God is powerful, loving, eager and able to repair and heal us.
Group Discussion. What might it be like to feel hopeless about being able to change for the better as a person?
Personal Reflection. In what ways do you feel that you are beyond help or repair?
In the text for this study, we hear the story of a man who believed himself to be beyond hope, who called out to God for help and experienced restoration. Read Psalm 30.
1. How does the writer of this psalm describe himself before he experienced God’s rescue and help (vv. 1, 3, 5, 7, 11)?
2. In what way do these descriptions match experiences you have had?
3. What did the writer do when he was in this desperate, hopeless situation?
4. What language does the writer use to describe what God did for him?
5. How might these descriptions of God’s help speak to someone who fears that they are irreparable?
6. Which of these descriptions of God’s active help speak to you the most?
7. In verse 5 the writer states that God’s “anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime.” In verse 7 the psalmist talks to God about a time when God “hid his face.” What do you think he is saying in these two statements?
8. In what way do you relate to the experiences described in verses 5 and 7?
9. How would you describe the psalmist’s response to being rescued, helped and healed by God?
10. In a time of quiet, talk to God about your own need and distress. Talk to God about whatever feelings of fear, shame, despair or hopelessness you have about yourself. Invite God to help you and heal you. Write about what you shared with God.
11. God is powerful and loving and actively working to heal us. As this psalmist puts it, God is working “to turn our wailing into dancing, to remove our sackcloth and clothe us with joy.” In a time of quiet, invite God to show you how God is doing this in your life. Write about whatever you sensed in this time. Stay open to whatever God might continue to show you.
Thank God for being powerful and eager to rescue, heal and restore you.
Now or Later
Continue to use questions 10 and 11 in a time of quiet with God each day this week.
DISTORTED IMAGES OF SELF
Restoring Our Vision
6
Forgotten Versus Remembered
Genesis 16
God is frequently described in Scripture as faithful in love and goodness. God’s love never fails. God’s lovingkindness endures forever. God actively loves and cares for all that God has made.
We read that God’s love is too vast for us to comprehend, that it surpasses our knowing. Yet we also read that it is a love that is deeply personal. Our Creator knows when every sparrow falls and knows us so intimately that even the hairs of our head are counted. God knows when we rise and when we rest, what we think and what we say.
We are known. We are seen. We are valued. We are loved. In ways that are constant, sure and everlasting. Yet some of us experience ourselves as invisible, forgotten, neglected and abandoned. These distorted images of ourselves feed our fears and loneliness.
God invites us to see and experience ourselves as seen and known. God never forgets us. In a text in Isaiah, God asks if a mother can forget her child, and goes on to say that even if a mother could forget her own child, God can never forget us. We came from God. We are God’s own creation. God will never forget us.
Group Discussion. What might it be like to feel invisible or easily forgettable to others and to God?
Personal Reflection. Have you had times when you felt like God has forgotten you? What was the experience like?
In the text for this study we read a story about a woman who was a servant. She was a handmaiden to Sarah, wife of Abraham. She had little voice or choice in her world. She was someone who might have seemed invisible, forgettable to others. But she was seen and remembered by God. Read Genesis 16.
1. This chapter reads a bit like a four-act play (vv. 1–4, vv. 5–6, vv. 7–14, vv. 15–16). What titles might you give to each act?
2. What sense do you get from this story about how Sarah (Sarai) saw Hagar?
3. What sense do you get from this story about how Abraham saw Hagar?
4. How does Sarah’s and Abraham’s treatment of Hagar compare with the way God treats Hagar?
5. How does Hagar respond to God?
6. What do you imagine it was like to be Hagar—to have no voice or no choice in life and to be seen as someone’s property?
7. Are there ways in which you relate to Hagar’s experience of being treated as “less than”?
8. How do you relate to the experience of feeling forgotten by others, to the experience of feeling alone?
9. What would it be like to know that God does not forget you but rather remembers you and sees you with compassion?
10. Take a few minutes to breathe deeply and easily. Picture yourself out in the desert, having run out of supplies, crying and listening to your child cry. You have been mistreated. You believe you are forgotten and alone. But then you hear an angel of God speaking to you, telling you that you are remembered, you are seen, your misery is known to God and your needs are being provided for. Stay with the experience of being seen and remembered by God in such loving ways. Write about your experience.
11. What would you like to do to acknowledge and respond to the God who sees you and remembers you?
Thank God for never forgetting you.
Now or Later
Use question 10 as a prayer meditation each day this week. Write about your experience of being seen and remembered by God.
DISTORTED IMAGES OF SELF
Restoring Our Vision
7
Insignificant Versus Significant
Matthew 5:1–10, 14–16
Who am I? we wonder. What significance does my small life have in the big world, in this vast universe? What is the point of my existence? What is the meaning of my life?
The psalmist reflected on this ancient question when he queried the Lord:
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them? (Psalm 8:3–4)
It is true that in many ways we are very small. We are each just one out of many billions of humans on this earth, living on a spinning sphere that is one of many billions of spheres spinning in God’s great universe. But small is not the same as insignificant to our Maker. The psalmist goes on to say, quite astonishingly, about humankind that God has “crowned them with glory and honor” (v. 5).
We are crowned by God with glory. We are crowned by our Creator with honor. Yet we struggle with painful feelings of insignificance that can either drive us into desperate, exhausting efforts to “be somebody” or drive us into the despair of apathy and depression. As this text suggests, the solution is to recognize that our significance is a gift from God. It is a gift to be received with childlike humility.
Group Discussion. What kinds of things would you say that people in our culture do in order to gain a sense of significance?
What impact do these attempts to gain significance have on peoples’ character and relationships?
Personal Reflection. What thoughts and feelings have you experienced as you reflect on your sense of significance or insignificance?
In the text for this study Jesus turns common wisdom on its head. Jesus teaches us that we do not become significant when we strive to gain power or status. All our attempts to grasp self-made glory only hide our true significance. Instead, our true significance is seen only when we abandon such attempts and allow the true glory God has given us to shine through. Read Matthew 5:1–10, 14–16.
1. Make a list of the ways of being that Jesus blesses in verses 2–10.
2. What do these characteristics have in common?
3. How does this list contrast with the list our culture sees as blessed?
4. Rewrite the list from question 1 using your own words and phrases to capture the meaning you see in each way of being.
5. Which of these character qualities challenge you or speak to you the most?
6. Look at who Jesus says we are in verse 14. Sit with this statement for a minute. Read it again. What thoughts do you have about being told that this is who you are?
7. What does Jesus say in verses 14–16 about the ways people might respond to the reality of their God-given significance?
8. Why would we hide our true significance?
9. What is it about the character qualities that Jesus blessed in verses 2–10 that allows our lights to shine in a way that would “give light to everyone in the house”?
10. In a time of quiet, see yourself as a lamp lit but hidden. Ask God to show you what is blocking God’s light of love from shining. Invite God to remove, bit by bit, the things which conceal your light. Write about your experience.
11. In a time of quiet, see yourself as a light lit and sitting on a stand, providing light for others. Write about your experience of being the light that you are.
Thank God for the gift of significance.
Now or Later
Use questions 6, 10 and 11 in a time of reflection and prayer this week. Write about your experience.
DISTORTED IMAGES OF SELF
Restoring Our Vision
8
Disconnected Versus Bonded in Love
1 John 4:7–21
We are all created with a need to be deeply bonded to others and to our Maker. We are designed to belong to someone greater than ourselves and to each other. This is the core of who we are.
Yet we often feel like the odd person out. We often see ourselves as disconnected, different and alone. And when we see ourselves in this way, we are usually unaware that many others around us are feeling the same way. Single, married, with or without children, young or old, rich or poor, this view of ourselves as outsiders can affect any of us.
But this way of seeing ourselves is a distortion. We do belong. We are loved. Whether we know it or experience it, this is the truth about us. We belong. We are connected to God and to others.
In the text for this study we are reminded that we live in relationship with our Creator and in relationship with each other.
Group Discussion. What does belonging mean to you?
Personal Reflection. What is it like to feel disconnected from others and from God?
What helps you to feel connected to God and to others?
In the text for this study we read that God is love, that God loves us first and always and calls us to experience the richness that comes from knowing ourselves to be deeply bonded in love to God and to each other. Read 1 John 4:7–21.
1. List several things we learn about God in this text.
2. What are the effects of knowing God, according to this text?
3. How does this kind of knowing differ from an academic knowing of God?
4. What does the text say about how God showed love to us (vv. 9–10)?
5. Given this gift of love from God, what might it mean, in practical terms, to love each other?
6. The text seems to be talking about a progression of love between God, ourselves and others. Why might it be important to know that this progression of love begins with God—to know that God loved us first?
7. In verse 16 we read that “we know and rely on the love God has for us.” What would it be like to know and rely on God’s love for you?
8. According to verse 18, fear and love seem to be in opposition to each other. Fear causes us to feel disconnected and alone in the world. How does fear create barriers to knowing and relying on the love of God?
9. In what way does fear create barriers to knowing and relying on other peoples’ love?
10. In what way does fear create barriers to freely loving others?
11. In a time of quiet, close each hand and picture the fears that create barriers to receiving love from God and from others as items held tightly in your fists. Invite God to help you release your fears to God’s loving care. As you are ready, open your hands and keep them open in an act of release. Then read verse 16 three times slowly, giving yourself a couple of minutes to sit with these truths between each reading. “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” As you keep your hands open, invite God to fill you with a deeper experience of God’s love, freeing you to love more and more as God loves. Write about your experience of praying in this way.
Thank God that God loves us first and calls us to live in that love, and to be that love to others.
Now or Later
Continue to use question 11 in a time of daily prayer and reflection this week. Write about your experience of praying in this way. Notice any sense of feeling more deeply bonded in love to God and to others.[1]
[1] Ryan, Dale, and Juanita Ryan. Distorted Images of Self: Restoring Our Vision: 8 Studies for Individuals or Groups: With Notes for Leaders. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Connect: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2013. Print. A LifeGuide Bible Study.
A LifeGuide® Bible Study
WAITING FOR GOD
8 STUDIES FOR INDIVIDUALS OR GROUPS
Juanita Ryan
Contents
Getting the Most Out of Waiting for God
1 When Waiting Is Difficult
Psalm 13:1-6
2 Wisdom in Waiting
Proverbs 3:1–12
3 Waiting for God
Psalm 42:1-11
4 Waiting Together
Job 2:11–13; 6:1–17; 13:1–5
5 Waiting with Hope
Luke 1:1–25, 57–80
6 God’s Presence and Purposes in Our Waiting
Genesis 37:12–36; 39:1–23; 50:15–21
7 The Gifts in Waiting
Psalm 40:1-17
8 The God Who Waits
Luke 15:11–32
Getting the Most Out of Waiting for God
“How long, O God, how long? Will you forget me forever?” This was the cry of the psalmist. It was the cry of many of the prophets. It may also be the cry of your heart at this time in your life. Or it may be that you endured such a time in your past and are left with questions about it. Maybe you also know someone who is going through such a time.
We will all experience times of waiting in the midst of uncertainty or suffering or great need. During these times we may feel desperate for something to change or for a sign of hope that things will change soon. But often in our periods of waiting, nothing happens, nothing changes. If anything, things seem to get worse.
In the midst of such waiting it can seem like God is silent. We might fear that God has forgotten us and feel too discouraged to even turn to God for help. Or we may turn to God only to become more frightened and dismayed because our prayers for help or deliverance seem to go unanswered.
Not all waiting is painful. Sometimes waiting is a time of great anticipation outwardly, such as when we’re planning a wedding, expecting a new child in the family, or preparing for an exciting change of job or location. But even these happier times of waiting can be full of anxieties. We may fear that something will go terribly wrong. Or that we are making the wrong decision. Or that we will not be adequate for the task. Or that we will not have the emotional or social skills to weather the adaptation. These fears are often hidden, sometimes even from ourselves, but they can make even times of excited waiting very difficult. And again we may find inwardly that we are having trouble trusting God to protect and provide for us.
How is it possible to meet God in our times of waiting? How do we meet God when God seems unresponsive to our desperate need?
The God of the Bible is the God who has promised to always be with us. Always. Even in our times of waiting. Even when our situation is desperate or our heart is full of anxiety. Even when we believe God is silent or unresponsive to our need or inattentive to our future. Even when we feel like we have lost all faith.
The following studies are designed to help you give voice to your distress and gain perspective on your fears in times of waiting, and to open your heart and mind to the One who is with you always.
Suggestions for Individual Study
1. As you begin each study, pray that God will speak to you through his Word.
2. Read the introduction to the study and respond to the personal reflection question or exercise. This is designed to help you focus on God and on the theme of the study.
3. Each study deals with a particular passage so that you can delve into the author’s meaning in that context. Read and reread the passage to be studied. The questions are written using the language of the New International Version, so you may wish to use that version of the Bible. The New Revised Standard Version is also recommended.
4. This is an inductive Bible study, designed to help you discover for yourself what Scripture is saying. The study includes three types of questions. Observation questions ask about the basic facts: who, what, when, where and how. Interpretation questions delve into the meaning of the passage. Application questions help you discover the implications of the text for growing in Christ. These three keys unlock the treasures of Scripture.
Write your answers to the questions in the spaces provided or in a personal journal. Writing can bring clarity and deeper understanding of yourself and of God’s Word.
5. It might be good to have a Bible dictionary handy. Use it to look up any unfamiliar words, names or places.
6. Use the prayer suggestion to guide you in thanking God for what you have learned and to pray about the applications that have come to mind.
7. You may want to go on to the suggestion under “Now or Later,” or you may want to use that idea for your next study.
1
When Waiting Is Difficult
Psalm 13
We do not like to wait. Whether it is being put on hold on the phone or standing in a long line at the store, waiting irritates us.
Sometimes, though, waiting is more than an annoyance. Sometimes it’s torturous. Waiting for a loved one to come out of surgery. Waiting for the results of a biopsy taken to test for cancer. Waiting for an answer to a prayer we have been praying for months or even years. This kind of waiting is difficult because it is full of fear. We are left in these times with terrible questions about our future—and terrible questions about God.
Scripture testifies to these times of painful waiting, putting into words our anguished fears. Wonderfully, Scripture also offers us hope and strength for these times of difficult waiting.
Group Discussion. What kinds of situations are hardest for you to wait patiently in? Why?
Personal Reflection. Think of a time when you waited a long time for an answer to prayer. What anxieties did you experience while waiting? How did this time of waiting affect your sense of God’s presence with you?
In this psalm, the psalmist voices the great distress he is experiencing in a time of waiting. In doing so, he offers us permission and language to express our struggles to God. Read Psalm 13.
1. How would you title each of the three sections of this psalm (vv. 1–2, vv. 3–4 and vv. 5–6)?
2. What do we learn from the first section (vv. 1–2) about how waiting affects the psalmist mentally and emotionally?
3. How does the experience of waiting affect how he experiences God (v. 1)?
4. How does the psalmist’s mental, emotional and spiritual experience while waiting compare with your experiences during times of difficult waiting?
5. What does the psalmist ask for in verse 3?
6. What is the psalmist convinced will happen if God doesn’t answer him (v. 4)?
7. What does the psalmist commit to doing in the final section of the psalm?
8. What does he reaffirm about God?
9. How might remembering these truths about God help you when waiting is difficult?
10. How can this text be a resource to you in your times of waiting?
11. In a time of quiet join the psalmist in his prayer found in verse 3: “Look on me and answer, Lord my God.” Sit in silence before God, perhaps with your hands open on your lap, with this prayer in your heart. Share or write about your experience in this time of quiet before God.
Express your longing to know God’s presence with you in whatever difficulty or challenge you are facing.
Now or Later
Using Psalm 13 as a model, journal a prayer. Express to God whatever difficulty you are experiencing. Ask for God’s help and for the faith to trust that God is with you. Reaffirm what you know to be true about who God is.
2
Wisdom in Waiting
Proverbs 3:1–12
Waiting often causes anxiety. We plead with God to hurry and act even while we battle a growing fear that God has deserted us. To cope, we may try to take control of things that we have no ability to control, often causing harm to ourselves or others. We can become demanding and manipulative in attempts to make things go the way we think they ought to go. And when our attempts fail, anger may take hold and lead us to say and do things that are hurtful. The end result will likely be exhaustion and despair.
Wisdom teaches another way: wait for God to lead, for God to guide, for God to act. Rather than relying on ourselves to try to control things that are out of our control, wisdom calls us to depend on God. Rather than relying on our very limited understanding, wisdom instructs us to trust God’s omniscience and goodness. In times of waiting we are invited to choose wisdom, to ask for deeper trust in, and deeper surrender to, the One who loves us and longs to show us the way.
Group Discussion. Imagine you’re giving a friend, a daughter or son, or a grandchild instruction in three or four key points of wisdom for life. What would you say?
Personal Reflection. Think of a time of waiting in your life. What wisdom did you receive from God during that time?
Our text—words on living wisely from a loving father to his son—teaches us to choose wisdom in our waiting by “[trusting] in the Lord with all [our] heart” rather than placing our confidence in our own abilities. Read Proverbs 3:1–12.
1. List all that the father advises the son to do.
2. What benefits does the father say will come from following this wisdom?
3. What reactions might a son have to hearing these instructions on wisdom?
4. What might it mean to “bind [love and faithfulness] around your neck” and to “write them on the tablet of your heart” (v. 3)?
5. What does it mean to “trust in the Lord with all your heart” (v. 5)?
6. What might it mean for a person to acknowledge God in all their ways (v. 6)?
7. Which of the instructions listed are difficult for you to follow?
What makes those particular instructions difficult?
8. Which of these instructions speaks to you the most at this time in your life?
9. Spend a few minutes contemplating the list you made in response to question one. Ask God to remind you of ways you are following the instructions in Proverbs 3. Write what comes to your mind.
10. Ask God to show you where God would have you change. Write your response to what it seems God is saying to you.
11. How might these instructions be especially important for you in times of waiting?
12. How might following this wisdom lead to a greater sense of God’s presence with you?
Thank God for the privilege of relying on God and God’s wisdom in all you do.
Now or Later
Focus on one or two of the instructions from this text this week. Each day put it into practice. Make a journal entry at the end of each day about the impact that following this wisdom had on your day.
3
Waiting for God
Psalm 42
In times of waiting, our focus is often on future events. We wonder what will happen next. We wonder if the changes we hope for will ever come.
But there is more going on in our minds and hearts in times of waiting; there’s something more that we are waiting for. Our greatest need and longing in times of waiting (and in all times) is for God. When we quiet ourselves during these times, this deeper experience of waiting begins to emerge.
Something happens to us in this kind of waiting. We are brought to attention. Our hearts and minds and spirits focus on what matters most, on what is most real, on our deepest longings for God.
When we wait as if we are watching for our soul’s true love to appear, we find that the focus of our waiting is not so much about the future as it is about this present moment. This moment we can be right here, right now with our need, with our hunger, with our thirst for the One who is our Home, our Hope, our Help.
This kind of waiting is what the psalmist gives voice to in Psalm 42.
Group Discussion. Reflect on a time when you were separated from someone you love. What was the experience of that separation like for you? How would you describe the experience of being reunited with this loved one?
Personal Reflection. Think about the idea of God being your “soul’s true love.” Do you tend to view and relate to God that way? Why or why not?
In this text the psalmist struggles to hang on to hope, giving voice to an experience that is often a part of waiting for all of us. Read Psalm 42.
1. What words and images does the psalmist use to describe his emotional, physical and spiritual experience of waiting for and longing for God?
2. Why do you think the experience of feeling separated from God creates so much distress for the psalmist?
3. Given the descriptions of what it can be like to wait for and long for God, how difficult is it, in your experience, to stay aware of these deep feelings when you’re in the middle of a season of waiting?
4. What value might there be in staying aware of these feelings and even giving voice to them?
5. Which of the psalmist’s descriptions of longing for God do you most relate to?
6. What were men saying to the psalmist about God?
How do you think their words added to the psalmist’s distress?
7. What contrast does the psalmist draw in verses 3 and 4 between what he remembers and what he is currently experiencing?
8. What truths does the psalmist return to in order to encourage himself in this time of waiting and longing for a sense of God’s presence?
9. What truths and experiences of God do you find yourself returning to in times of waiting and longing for a sense of God’s presence?
10. What does the psalmist say in verse 8 that God is doing for him even through this time of waiting?
11. What can you see God doing in you and for you in your own time of waiting?
Express your longing for God directly to God.
Now or Later
Read the first two verses of this psalm and sit quietly in openness to God for two or three minutes. Repeat this three more times. Write about whatever you experienced in this time.
4
Waiting Together
Job 2:11–13; 6:1–17; 13:1–5
Times of waiting can be very difficult. But waiting with the support of others can literally make an unbearable situation bearable. One of the ways that God is present to us in times of waiting is through the compassion, kindness and respectfulness of others; they minister the loving presence of God to us.
In his book The View from the Hearse, Joseph Bayly describes an experience with a friend who was not able to be supportive to him and a friend who was:
I was sitting, torn by grief. Someone came and talked to me of God’s dealings, of why it happened, of hope beyond the grave. He talked constantly, he said things I knew were true. I was unmoved, except to wish he’d go away. He finally did.
Another came and sat beside me. He didn’t talk. He didn’t ask leading questions. He just sat beside me for an hour and more, listened when I said something, answered briefly, prayed simply, left. I was moved. I was comforted. I hated to see him go.
The friend who made a positive difference was the one who was fully present to him in his pain. Friends like that are a true gift in the midst of our times of waiting.
Group Discussion. When have you seen well-meaning “support” cause more pain and hurt instead of helping someone? Where did the person offering support go wrong?
Personal Reflection. Imagine yourself waiting by yourself for a friend or family member to go through surgery. What thoughts and feelings come to you as you picture this? Now imagine yourself waiting with a supportive friend. What would you want from your friend? What would it feel like to receive that from your friend?
Job’s experience of friends who sat with him in his time of waiting for God to answer his heart’s cry can both encourage and instruct us. At first these friends were truly present with Job, but they then began to withdraw from him and his pain, offering unwanted advice and criticism. Read Job 2:11–13; 6:1–17; 13:1–5.
1. Job has suffered unspeakable losses. When his friends come to visit him, what is their initial response (2:11–13)?
2. What did these friends communicate to Job through that initial response (2:11–13)?
3. After some time, Job speaks in anguish (Job 3), and his friends begin to offer advice and correction. What is Job’s response to them (6:1–3, 14–17; 13:1–5)?
4. What do you think Job is asking of his friends in verse 6:14?
5. In Job 13:1–5 Job states that his friends’ silence was much wiser than their words. Why is this so often true in times of great anguish?
6. Why is it sometimes difficult to listen in silent empathy and compassion to a friend’s “impetuous” words that seem to indicate a “forsaking of the fear of the Almighty”?
7. What does it feel like to be the one receiving the gifts of silent empathy and compassion from others while we wait?
8. How do you offer the kind of support Job was asking for to your friends? Think of specific examples of times you have offered or could offer this kind of support.
9. How do your friends offer you this kind of support? Think of specific examples.
10. How might this kind of support from a friend help you to experience God in times of waiting?
11. In what situation in your life right now could you use support from a friend?
Pray for your friends, thanking God for the gifts of help and support you each receive from the other.
Now or Later
Spend some time with a friend this week, listening with compassion and respect to whatever they are going through and inviting them to do the same for you.
5
Waiting with Hope
Luke 1:1–25, 57–80
The Gospel of Luke begins with the story of a promise within a promise. In the opening scene we meet a man named Zechariah who has been waiting for many years with his wife to be blessed with a child. He and his wife have also been waiting, along with all the people of Israel, for the promised Messiah.
Luke recounts how an angel comes to Zechariah and announces to him that what he has been waiting for is about to happen. He and his wife will have a son. And that son will prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah.
But the waiting has been long, and it is not easy to wait with hope. Over time hope tends to dim and discouragement, doubt and even despair begin to set in. By the time the angel appears to Zechariah, he has all but given up. The message is almost too much to grasp, too much to hope for; he expresses doubt that the events will actually come to pass.
But as the story unfolds we are reminded again that our hope is in God—God who is lovingly, powerfully active in our lives, in our story, in history.
Group Discussion. How would you define hope?
Personal Reflection. Why is it sometimes so difficult to hang on to hope in times of waiting?
In the text for this study we listen in as an angel tells Zechariah that his time of waiting is about to become a time of receiving. And we watch as Zechariah struggles to hope. Read Luke 1:1–25, 57–80.
1. What title would you give to the first section of this text (vv. 1–25)?
What title would you give to the second section (vv. 57–80)?
2. Elizabeth and Zechariah had been praying and waiting for a child for decades. They had probably given up all hope. The nation of Israel had been waiting for the promised Messiah for hundreds of years and may have been struggling to hang on to hope. In what way can you relate to this kind of experience?
3. Put yourself in Zechariah’s place. What do you imagine he is experiencing during his encounter with the angel?
4. How might the “sign” of being temporarily mute have been a gift to Zechariah in his time of waiting for their son to be born?
5. What does the angel say that the promised son will do to prepare people for the coming of the Messiah (v. 17)?
6. What does Zechariah say that his son will do to prepare people for the Lord (vv. 76–77)?
7. Which of these preparations for receiving more of God might God be doing in your life at this time?
8. How have you seen God prepare you for gifts from God that you’ve been waiting for?
9. The two primary human actors in this story are Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth. But the primary Actor in this story is clearly God. Take a few minutes to reread the story with this perspective in mind. How does this perspective change how you see this story?
10. How does seeing God as the major Actor in this story change how you see your own story?
11. Verses 78 and 79 offer a powerful image of God acting in ways that move us from hopelessness to hope. Reread these verses out loud slowly. Sit quietly and prayerfully with this image. Invite God to speak to you. Share or write about whatever came to you in this time.
12. How does this story offer hope to you in your time of waiting?
Ask God to fill you with hope and to speak to you of God’s faithfulness, trustworthiness and purposefulness in the midst of your waiting.
Now or Later
Read Psalm 33:20–22 several times, sitting in silence for two or three minutes between readings, inviting God to open your mind and heart to whatever God has for you.
We wait in hope for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord,
even as we put our hope in you.
6
God’s Presence and Purposes in Our Waiting
Genesis 37:12–36; 39:1–23; 50:15–21
Joseph was a man who was hated and betrayed by his brothers and then later falsely accused and put in prison for seven years. Yet all the time, God was with Joseph, unfolding a greater plan.
It could not have been easy for Joseph to stay connected to the reality of God’s presence with him in all he suffered, any more than it is for us in times of distress. Yet we are called to trust that God is with us, that God is good and loving, and that God is at work in ways unknown to us, bringing good even out of our times of distress.
Group Discussion. When you think about times of waiting in the past, what made it difficult to trust that God was with you? What helped you in those times to trust that God was with you?
Personal Reflection. Think of a time when you felt unsure of God’s loving presence with you. What was the experience like for you? Now think of a time when you had a sense of God’s presence with you. What happened that reassured you that God was with you?
The life story of Joseph is a story filled with heartbreak, betrayal, injustice and waiting. In this study we follow Joseph through a series of traumatic life events, any of which could have left him believing that God had abandoned him. Yet in Joseph’s times of waiting for deliverance, God was with him, working to bring blessing to many. Read Genesis 37:12–36; 39:1–23 and 50:15–21.
1. What scenes stand out to you as you read through these stories from Joseph’s life?
2. From a human point of view, what might Joseph have thought and felt about himself, other people and life in general through these experiences of betrayal and injustice?
3. What might he have been thinking and feeling about God?
4. What parts of Joseph’s experiences can you relate to? Explain.
5. Some time later, Joseph was able to see God’s hand at work bringing good out of what others meant for harm. How did Joseph respond to his brothers (50:15–21)?
6. What do you think made it possible for Joseph to respond in this way to his brothers?
7. What thoughts do you have about Joseph’s conclusion that what others meant for harm, God intended for good?
8. What does this story show us about God?
9. In what ways have you seen God at work in times of difficult waiting?
How have those experiences (or your lack of such an experience) changed your times of waiting?
10. In what ways have your experiences of God’s presence with you changed you?
11. How might this story of Joseph help you trust that God is present even in times of difficult waiting?
Express your gratitude to God for God’s presence with you in times of waiting and always.
Now or Later
Read more of the story of Joseph in chapters 40–47 of Genesis, looking for evidence of God’s plan unfolding and God’s presence with him.
7
The Gifts in Waiting
Psalm 40
We have seen that when we are going through a time of difficult waiting, on the deepest level what we are really longing and waiting for is an experience of God-with-us-as-we-wait.
When, by grace, we encounter God in our waiting, we are changed. The gifts we receive in these times of experiencing God’s tender mercies toward us can have a profound and lasting impact on our awareness of God’s personal love for us. This deeper trust in God’s unfailing love, in turn, can strengthen us, heal us and free us in ways we might never have known otherwise.
Group Discussion. How do you tend to express your gratitude?
Personal Reflection. Think of a time recently when you felt grateful. What was the experience of gratitude like for you?
In this study we join the psalmist in his boundless gratitude to God for God’s many kindnesses in times of waiting—kindnesses which have allowed us to experience God-with-us, loving us and caring for us. Read Psalm 40.
1. What does the psalmist say that God has done for him (vv. 1–3)?
2. When have you sensed that God heard your cry in a time of waiting? Explain.
3. What experiences have you had of God lifting you out of a slimy pit of mud and mire and giving you a firm place to stand?
4. What new song has God put in your heart?
5. What is the psalmist’s response to the gifts he has received from God (vv. 4–5, 9–10)?
6. In what specific ways have you responded to the gifts God has given you in times of waiting?
7. In verses 6–8 the psalmist makes the statement that God does not desire religious observances (sacrifices and offerings) as an expression of our gratitude but instead wants our heart. What contrast would you draw between verbal expressions of gratitude and the kind of loving surrender (as an expression of gratitude) that is described in verses 6–8?
8. Why do you think the psalmist is making this point that God does not desire our religious observances but instead desires our wills and our hearts?
9. What would it mean to “desire to do [God’s] will” and to have God’s law “within [your] heart” (v. 8)?
10. What does the psalmist continue to ask for from God in verses 11–17?
11. What do you want to continue to ask God for at this time?
Thank God for all the gifts you have received from God in your times of waiting.
Now or Later
Paraphrase verses 6–8 to make the statements more personal for you. As you are ready, pray this prayer of surrender every day as an outpouring of your love and gratitude for God’s personal love and care for you.
8
The God Who Waits
Luke 15:11–32
Waiting through difficult times can be so challenging that we might sometimes feel that the waiting itself is a form of suffering. And indeed, it can be. This is, in part, why we often experience renewed hope and strength when we are able to trust that God is with us to help us, keep us and bless us in our waiting.
We may be equally moved to learn that God knows what it is like to wait. In one of the stories that Jesus told, he described God as the waiting Father. God, our Creator, our Sustainer, our Life, waits for us.
As you study this powerful passage, may the beauty of the grace of our God speak to you in ways that allow you to truly meet God anew in your times of waiting.
Group Discussion. What words would you use to describe an ideal relationship between a father and child?
Personal Reflection. What words would you use to describe your relationship with your father?
The story that Jesus tells in this text is often referred to as the story of the prodigal son. But it most importantly paints a stunning portrait of God, the waiting Father, who waits for us, scans the horizon looking for us and runs to embrace us when we are still far from home. Read Luke 15:11–32.
1. What words would you use to describe the two sons in this story?
2. How are they different, and how are they the same?
3. In what way do you see yourself in each of them?
4. What character traits are evident in this father’s waiting?
5. What responses do you have to the father’s waiting?
6. What did the father do when his waiting was over?
What emotions does the father’s reaction stir in you?
7. What does Jesus teach us in this story about who God is?
8. What does Jesus teach us in this story about how God sees us?
9. How does Jesus’ picture of who God is compare to your images of God?
10. How does this story’s portrayal of how God sees us compare to your ideas about how God sees you?
11. How might knowing that God is a God who waits speak to you in your times of waiting?
Thank God for being a God who waits for you with love and compassion.
Now or Later
In a time of quiet, let yourself reflect on the following images from Jesus’ story:
Put yourself in this story as the son or daughter who is returning home after a time of doing things your own way. You have been longing for home, but no longer feel worthy. You have a speech planned about how unworthy you are. But suddenly, you see God, your true Father, running to meet you on the road. His arms are open, his eyes are full of joy, he calls your name with great tenderness. Let him wrap his arms around you. Listen to him say, “Welcome home, my dear child. I am overjoyed to see you. I love you.”[1]
[1] Ryan, Juanita. Waiting for God: 8 Studies for Individuals or Groups: With Notes for Leaders. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Connect: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2013. Print. A LifeGuide Bible Study.