God’s promise and purpose for your life
Connect the dots
Week 1
Take home questions
1. What desires and
intentions do you have for your life?
2. Read Genesis 37, 39-45. Think about Joseph’s dreams and how they came
to pass.
· Do you think his dreams came to pass when and how he
expected them to?
· What do you think God accomplished in Joseph by
delaying the fulfillment of Joseph’s dreams?
· What do you think God has accomplished in you by
delaying the fulfillment of your dreams?
3. Read the following excerpt from an article
written in Guidepost magazine by Catherine Marshall:
Like most people, when I first began active
experimentation with prayer, I was full of questions, such as: Why are some
agonizingly sincere prayers granted, while others are not? I still have
questions. Mysteries about prayer are always ahead of present knowledge—luring,
beckoning on to further experimentation.
But one thing I do know; I learned it through hard
experience. It’s a way of prayer that has resulted consistently in a glorious
answer, glorious because each time, power beyond human reckoning has been
released. This is the Prayer of Relinquishment.
I got my first glimpse of it in the fall of 1943. I had
been ill for six months with a lung infection, and a bevy of specialists seemed
unable to help. Persistent prayer, using all the faith I could muster, had
resulted in—nothing. I was still in bed full-time.
One afternoon I read the story of a missionary who had
been an invalid for eight years. Constantly she had prayed that God would make
her well, so that she might do his work. Finally, worn out with futile
petition, she prayed, All right. I give up. If you want me to be an
invalid, that’s your business. Anyway, I want you even more than I want health.
You decide. In
two weeks the woman was out of bed, completely well.
This made no sense, yet the story would not leave me. On
the morning of September 14—how can I ever forget the date?—I came to the same
point of abject acceptance. I’m tired of asking, was the burden of my prayer.I’m beaten. God, you decide what you want for me. Tears flowed. I had no faith as
I understood faith, expected nothing. The gift of my sick self was made with no
trace of graciousness.
And the result? It was as if I had touched a button that
opened windows in heaven; as if some dynamo of heavenly power began flowing.
Within a few hours I had experienced the presence of the Living Christ in a way
that wiped away doubt and revolutionized my life. From that moment my recovery
began.
Through this incident, God was trying to teach me
something important about prayer. Gradually, I saw that a demanding spirit,
with self-will as its rudder, blocks prayer. I understood that the reason for
this is that God absolutely refuses to violate our free will; that, therefore,
unless self-will is voluntarily given up, even God cannot move to answer
prayer.
· What does this speak to you
regarding God answering your prayer about your plans for your future?
4. What is motivating
your dreams for the future?
5. Do you have any dreams
you need to surrender to God?
6. Have you
unintentionally put finding your purpose ahead of pursuing your relationship
with God?
7. What does Jeremiah
29:11 speak to you personally?
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