INTRO: Have you adjusted to the time change yet?

READ:
Mark 15.33-35 (NIV)
1 Corinthians 5.21 (NIV)
Matthew 28.17
Psalm 22

DISCUSS:
1. Have you ever felt forsaken by God? Have you experienced a time or even a season when you expected God to be close and it didn’t feel like he was?
2. Is it encouraging to know that someone like Mother Teresa had moments of despair in which she wondered where God was?
3. Pastor Robert noted that the highest and truest times of worship may come during periods of doubt and uncertainty. If this is true, what are the implications? How does it feel to know that such worship is acceptable to God?
4. Have you previously understood that Christ’s cry on the cross of “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani” was him singing a Psalm? How does this detail affect your understanding of Jesus’s suffering and the Father’s response to his crucifixion?
5. Is there a passage of Scripture you could memorize to help remind yourself of truth when hard times come? To sing to the Lord when you’re struggling?

PRAY:
Lord, thank you for going to the cross for us. Thank you for the songbook of the Psalms, which gives us words to declare and claim when we don’t know what to say. Thank you for hearing us, for sustaining us even when our sense of your presence is weak and doubts creep into our minds. Thank you for being a king who is always near to his people.

SHARE & PRAY:
- Share one thing you need prayer for today…
- Take time to pray for one person at a time
- Invite the Holy Spirit to guide your time
- Listen to the Lord for guidance in how to pray for one another