Resources:

Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff

A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss by Gerald Sittser

When God Weeps: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty by Joni Eareckson Tada and Steven Estes

Daily Office by Peter Scazzero Week 5 (Page 79-96)

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero (page 135-152).

Things to Ponder: 

As a Simple Church Facilitator, think about your own losses. Consider your current limits and losses you are presently going through. Where are you at with that?

Here is the list of "limits" Darcy mentioned in his Talk on Sunday.

-       our physical bodies – we are aging. Getting older. We can’t do what we once were able to do. These things must be grieved. But in embracing my limits, I have to acknowledge that I am not the most gifted athlete. I have strengths; but also weaknesses or limits. With kids, I can’t train for every race…be a world class athlete.

-       Our family of origin – your family, ethnicity country of origin all gave you gifts and limits. Whether you had two parents or one, or were adopted, all of us enter adulthood with limits we need to embrace. Come to terms with.

-       Our marital status – both marriage and singleness have limits. There are things you can and cannot do when you are married or when you are single. If you have children, the number of kind of children all shape the kind of limits you have.

-       Our intellectual capacity – none of us are brilliant in literature, math, engineering, carpentry, physics, music, physical prowess and social skills, all at the same time.

-       Our spiritual gifts – You may 2-3 or more spiritual gifts but none of us have all the gifts. Some have been given the gift of prophecy; meanwhile you may have been given the gifts of shepherding and mercy. Celebrate what you have been given, and grieve away what you haven’t.

-       Material wealth – some of us have been given the ability to make money. Some of us not so much. Fact is our resources limit us all. Our level of prosperity limits us. This reality too needs to be grieved.

-       Your raw material – we all have been given a unique personality and temperament. You are unique. You might be a high feeler. An extrovert. Charismatic. Great skills in some ways, but it has its limits. Likely you are poor organizationally. This limit needs to be embraced. Come to terms with how God made you.

-       Our time – you only have one life. You can’t do it all. I would like to do so many things but my time is running out. I am limited by stage of life, lack of finances…all these are limits.

-       Our work – Our work is hard. Always collecting money. Working in the cold and rain. Your work is never finished. Working with people where you can’t control people’s choices, you are often filled with disappointment and slow results.  As a pastor I can grieve I didn’t get a trade in order to help makes ends meet. Grieve it away buddy!

-       Our relationships – relationship won’t be perfect until heaven. We would love a perfect church, perfect house church, perfect pastor, where everyone has the maturity and energy to love one another perfectly but it isn’t going to happen. We must grieve this limit or we will always be dissatisfied, or moving from church to church, or demanding too much from others and always disappointed.

-       And our spiritual understanding – the secret things belong to the Lord. There are some things you will ever understand. We must leave lots of room for mystery. So much of God is incomprehensible.

Share:

Perhaps share a bit of this with your group. Make sure your stuff doesn't dominate the morning/evening. If your own stuff surfaces in this exercise, make sure you access your own "spiritual friends" or Pastor to work this stufff out, outside the Simple Church.

Review: Have the group read Matthew 26:36-46

Questions: Answer 2-3 of the questions below or use one entry from Pete Scazzero's Daily Office (Week 5 pages 80-96).

1. What in this text jumps out at you? Why?

2. How does it sit with you that Jesus acknowledged his own feelings of distress, horror, anguish, sorrow, and grief? How does it make you feel that God made flesh actually felt this way? How does this speak to you?

3. Do you find it significant that Jesus invited 3 close companions with Him to share in His time of grief? In other words He went public with his grief. What does this say to you? Do you grieve alone behind closed doors? Or do you invite others with you in those moments? Why or why not?

4. Jesus asks God to take this cup from Him 3 times. Yet He closes each prayer with the words, "Yet I want your will to be done, not mine." The fact that He prays this 3 X says something of the kind of battle He was in. Yet it doesn't seem it is a battle of the will. Or was it? Did Jesus come to a place of surrender through prayer or was He always there? What role does prayer play in your own battle of crucifying your self-will?

5. Jesus askd the disciples to watch and pray, so that they wouldn't give into temptation. Was Jesus tempted in His final hour? If so, what do you think His temptation was? What role does watching and praying play in our own battle with temptation? Can we resist or conquer our self-will any other way?

Talk about these.

Pray