What a great time today! Please use all or some of these questions with a small group to deepen your engagement with the Sunday sermon, we hope it is helpful.
Connecting Questions
- What has brought you to worship the Lord in the last few days?
- What is a challenge you are facing? (Remember, we are not offering to fix each other’s problems unless support is asked for.)
Recall the ways we are called to engage scripture:
- The humble hear from the Lord.
- Scripture is like a mirror that helps us cultivate what is good and put to death what is sinful.
- We read in community so that our thinking, beliefs, and lifestyle might be sharpened by one another.
Pray that the Lord would do his work in us through the reading, interpretation, and application of scripture to our lives.
Read 1 Samuel 1:12-19.
Discuss the following questions.
- Eli the priest is accustomed to seeing drunkenness, even in his own family. (Pastor Chris will get to that later.) Somehow Eli did not expect that a woman in distress at the tabernacle might be praying. Pastor Chris noted that Hannah did not seem to become resentful or angry with Peninnah (the second wife), her husband Elkanah, God, or Eli the priest. How do you think you would be responding to these personalities?
- Chris said, “God will never fail you, but you will be disappointed.” Disappointment might be the failure to appear at an expected time, or the non-fulfilment of an expectation, intention, or desire. It stings when people disappoint us, especially loved ones. What about when God disappoints you? How do you work through your expectations of God, and biblical promises you feel are clear, such as John 14:14?
- Chris described Joy as borrowing happiness/goodness from the future. Also, Hope is believing that the future has happiness and goodness that we cannot feel now. Like Hannah, there may be times when we weep and we pray. How often do we spend more time weeping (or complaining, or withdrawing) than with our strongest and most effective tool – prayer?
- Read Galatians 6:1. How do restore someone with a spirit of gentelness?
Application
- Spend 1-2 minutes asking the Lord to speak to you about how to apply these things in your life this week.
- What needs to change in your life this week considering this scripture?
- How do you need to relate differently to the Lord as you experience disappointment?
- What would this next week look like if you poured out your heart to the Lord?
Share with others
- Who do you need to share these things with over the next few days?
Adapted gratefully from the contributions this week by Ryan Hartsfield and Don Stork. If you would like to assist in this project, please email barrington@southspring.org