Overview
Sarah Hall has a confession to make: She's been afraid that she's messed up her life. "It is a fear I know well," Hall writes in CT. "The plethora of choices—vocational, relational, and geographical—and the silence of my culture about its expectations, often left me feeling paralyzed. In the words of songwriter David Wilcox, 'I was dead with deciding—I was afraid to choose. I was mourning the loss of the choices I'd lose.' " Many of her friends, both older and younger, have felt the same kind of paralysis. "While I hear 20-somethings asking, 'What if my life doesn't go anywhere?' I hear my peers sighing, 'My life isn't going where I thought it would go.' Somewhere along the line, we feel, things have gone off track."
Christians certainly are not immune to this type of fear—sometimes our faith even seems to intensify the feeling that we may blow it. "How do we cope with the suspense of life in such an unpredictable world?" Hall asks. "How do we deal with the fear that our lives will be disappointing—to us or to God?" Thanks be to God, there are scriptural answers to these debilitating questions, and they all point to Christ.
Table of Contents
SCRIPTURE: John 14:20–23; 17:20–26; Romans 5:1–5; 8:18–25; 2 Corinthians 4:10–11; Colossians 3:1–10
LEADER'S GUIDE
• Identify the Current Issue
• Discover the Eternal Principles
—Teaching point one: We are united to Christ.
—Teaching point two: We can focus on the proper priorities.
—Teaching point three: We get to enjoy Christ's victory amid life's difficulties.
—Teaching point four: We know that our lives—even our pain—are sweetened by our fellowship with the Trinity.
—Teaching point five: We know that our suffering is not a deviation or a dead end.
—Teaching point six: We know that our suffering is not a deviation or a dead end.
• Apply Your Findings
• Additional Resources
ARTICLE FROM CHRISTIANITY TODAY
• "The Key to a Purposeful Life," by by Sarah Hall, 2012
