Joel 2:18-27
Abby Odio, Pastor of Teaching and Formation, abbyo@churchbcc.org
The prophet Joel offers three promises of God’s healing. In a time of great brokenness in our world, we cling to these promises which continue to offer great light and hope in the midst of this uncertain and difficult season.
- The promise of healed hearts
- The promise of healed land
- The promise of healed time
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Discussion Questions
Before questions, attempt to give the group a bit of a summary of the main points of the sermon and then choose a few questions that fit your group’s needs and style. We don’t intend for you to use all of these. Three to five questions may be a good number.
- When was the last moment that you experienced your cup “unexpectedly filled” (ex. Abby’s Halloween experience)?
- Read Joel 2:18-27 aloud
- Pastor Abby reminds us that when God instructs Israel to “rend their hearts” what he is saying is to take an honest look at your very core. Answer the following questions as we do the same:
- What motivates your life?
- What is the source of your fear?
- What or who do you trust?
- Knowing that these things, which drive our behavior and also most likely give us a sense of security, are actually empty, what does it look like to detach your heart from anything that your heart has turned to apart from God’s promises? (See the examples in Abby’s notes about Martha, Zacchaeus, the religious of Jesus’ time)
- Consider taking 5 minutes of group time to try the practice of silence together. (See the additional handout for an extended version and challenge the group members to participate throughout the week.)
- Leader Instructions:
- -Instruct the group to mute and/or turn off their cameras
- -Let the group know that you’ll set a timer 5 minutes and read aloud the following cues in bold:
- Intentionally place yourself in the presence of God as we pray: God, I make myself available to you hear your voice, by your grace help me to hear you with greater clarity.”
- -Pause for a breath or two and read:
- As you become quiet, pay attention to what you hear- voices? Traffic? Your own breathing? Your distracting thoughts?
- -Pause for a breath or two and read:
- As these distractions come to mind, let them go. Imagining that they are boats floating down a river. Let the current take the distractions away. Don’t follow them. Gently return to God by simply saying “Here I am”. Try and stay in this space with God until the timer sounds.
- -After the timer sounds instruct the group to turn their cameras back on and transition to discussion.
- What is one word to describe how you feel?
- Did you hear God speaking or prompting you in any subtle way?
- Is there a broken expectation of what life was supposed to be that you have been holding onto? What does it look like to trust in this promise that your relationship with God is where ones hearts is healed?
- How do you see creation acting like a mirror image of the spirituality of its inhabitants?
- What would it look like in your context to pause from your work to trust that God will care for you?
- In this moment where so much healing is needed around us, consider the impact of your own presence in your family, community, and even online world.
- Are you/we contributing to the noise in our land, or are you/we bearing witness to news that is good?
- Without shame in sharing, how often does healing, justice, mercy and goodness, flow through you to the spaces you inhabit - or is it egotism, defensiveness- consumption and self-preservation that flow more regularly?
- How can your fellow group members serve as accountability or reminders to return to God’s healing of your heart rather than a forced behavioral change?
- One of the most profound promises of hope we see in scripture is that what has been lost will be restored.
- What are the lost things that you wish to be restored right now? (ex. a relationship, your marriage, loss or lack of children, your pre-covid routine, your health or the health of the world)
- What does looking beyond these things of our time and towards Christ look like? What can we know about the greater narrative beyond our present state, or in the words of Abby’s son Mark, how do we know “it’s ok”?