Opening
Consider starting your group by asking people to share when they were most tempted to leave the faith. Invite them to share what kept them in the faith.
Overview
A question many believers ask is “how can we know we are becoming a fully mature believer?” One marker is that we are growing in sacrificial love and it brings us joy. Many things keep us from living in this kind of freedom. Control is one of them.
We are tempted to take control because of fear and anxiety. We are worried about things will turn out if we are not controlling what is happening and so we grasp to control people and situations that are outside of our agency. We also seek control because of selfish desire and ambition. We want something that is not ours to give and it leads to manipulation and even deceit. The problem is that control feels like life but it leads to death. Surrender, however, feels like death but leads to life.
Discussion Questions
- Where have you attempted to retain control when you should not have? What happened as a result?
- Where are you most tempted to grasp for control?
Practice
Often we are tempted to grasp for control because we think that we are the only ones who can manage a situation well. We don’t say it out loud, but we mean that even God could not deal with it as well as we could.
Take some time as a group to read Job 38 out loud. (You could go to the end of the book if you had time and wanted to.) You could take turns or have one person read it aloud to everyone else. Together make a list of what God is charge of that we have absolutely no access to. What do you learn about God from that chapter? How does that reframe placing situations and people and in your life back into God’s hands? Spend some time in silent prayer asking God what you should know about God’s character and your life. If group members are comfortable with sharing, make space for people to share what the Spirit revealed to them. Where is God asking you to give back control and what does that look like practically?
Closing
Encourage your group members to pray over one another as the Spirit leads.
