Lead in #1: Jesus promised the disciples that the Spirit would reveal himself to them. So it is for us. Through the Spirit, Christ reveals himself to us. Spiritual writer and storyteller Paula D’Arcy puts it this way, “God comes to you disguised as your life.” Prompt #1: What do you think it means when we say, “God comes to you disguised as your life”?
Prompt #2: If God comes to us disguised as our life, reflect on a time recently when God came to you disguised as your life. Lead in #2: Jesus told the disciples, “I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you… I live in you, and you live in me.” (John 14:18) Jesus describes the intimacy that God wants to have with us. It’s an intimacy that brings God as close to us as if God were our own heartbeat, as close to us as if God were the very air we breathe. Prompt #3: Has there ever been a time when, like the beat of your own heart, you felt the heartbeat of God within you? What was that like for you?
Lead in #3: Jesus told his disciples that he would not abandon them or “leave them orphaned.” (John 14: 17) Prompt #4: Was there ever a time when you felt like God had abandoned you, leaving you orphaned and very much alone and on your own? How was that for you?
Lead in #4: In I Peter 3:15, we’re told that our faith gives us reason to hope. Prompt #5: If asked, what explanation would you give as to why faith gives you reason to live with hope?
Lead in #5: When it came time for Jesus to leave his disciples, he promised them that the Father would give them an “advocate to be with (them) always.” (John 14:19) This meant that although not physically present to them like he was the three years the disciples accompanied Jesus as he went about his mission here on earth, that Jesus would be with his disciples in a new way. It’d be his presence working in them through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Prompt #6: Reflect on a time when you felt God’s presence assuring you that you were not alone, but that there was a power greater than your own at work in you. Prompt #7: Was there ever a time when God seemed so very far away that you had no sense of a power greater than your own there to help you?
