Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
SERMON NOTES & REFLECTION QUESTIONS
March 8, 2020
Sermon Title: Sowing Hope, Reaping Blessings
Rev. Laurel Balyeat Morrison
Texts: Ruth 1: 8 & 9 (Naomi); 16-17a (Ruth); 2:12 (Boaz); 2:20 (Naomi); 3:13 (Boaz); 4:14-15 (women)
A. Facing Loss and difficulties
1. What are some of the ways you have coped with loss?
2. Which are healthy and which are unhealthy?
3. How can you strengthen your faith so that it is stronger than your feelings about what you are going through?
4. Here is the quote Laurel shared by
Joan Chittister in her book, The Story of Ruth, pg. 11). “Loss, once reckoned, once absorbed, is a precious gift. No, I cannot be what I was before but I can be—I must be—something new. There is MORE OF GOD IN ME, I discover in emptiness, than I have ever known in what I once took to be fullness.” How do you respond to this?
How can you have “more of God in you” in loss and difficulty?
B. Cultivating Opportunies
Laurel stated that some of the ways God works are through the places we are in, the timing of events and circumstances, people, and our own intentions and hopes.
5. How is God active in your field of work, service or areas of influence?
6. Is there unusual timing of events in your life?
7. Are there people through whom God is especially working?
8. If you seek favor, do you question God when you get it?
C. Discerning Direction from God
Laurel taught that we can discern direction from God: by trusting God, listening to godly people, and stretching ourselves beyond our comfort zone.
9. How are you showing God trust these days?
10. What input or counsel are godly people giving you? How is God speaking through them?
11. Are you letting your need for comfort and/or control keeping you from stepping outside of your comfort zone?
12. What are your resistances to following where God is leading? What are your fears?
13. Who does God want you to become?
D. Celebrating Blessings
14. As you look at the story of your life, what are some of your greatest blessings?
15. What role did change and loss play in your story?
16. Wonders are things only God can do. What wonders has God done?
17. What blessings are you celebrating in this season of your life?