Above Ground 4 Peace

"When the restless activity of your mind slows down, when your thoughts stop rushing like waves on a windy day, then you will start getting glimpses of the sweet taste of inner peace." Remez Sasson"

We all want peace. Problem is, we're frantically trying to get it. Grab it out of others' hands. Buy it in bulk. Steal it. Compete for it. Even kill for it.

Paul lists peace as a third word in a succession of descriptors. Building on the other two, discuss as a group what peace might look like in your life, and how it will affect the quality of your family, work, school, etc..but also others' ability to see God's Spirit at work within you.

Thaw

• What have you found yourself worrying about as 2012 is well underway?
• What expectations are you meeting, and what ones do you feel like are slipping out of reach?
• Who is someone that you know that best represents peace?
• Who is someone that least represents it?
• What has stuck with you most from Sunday morning?

Leader note: You may want to ask if the daily readings from Luke have coincided with the message at all.

Read

• Galatians 5:22-23
• Thoughts?
• Why do you think the concept of peace follows love and joy in Paul's list?
• Why does peace elude so many people of faith, even though it's such a key idea, and sure an important marker for the faith we seek to have?

Read

• Colossians 3:15
• Thoughts?
• In Colossians, we're "called" to peace. In Galatians, it's evidence of God at work. Is there any difference here. What can we infer from the different way Paul and others speak of peace?
• How do we have peace "rule" in our hearts?
• How do we maintain the the reign of peace within us?

Read

• John 14:27
• As we seek to let peace rule in our hearts, what role do our anxieties play in trying to overthrow that rule?
• Why do we have and feed our anxieties?
• Are there any of us who have stopped believing we can do anything about our anxieties? Explain.

Leader note: Make sure you step into this with the understanding that if anyone has given up dealing with their anxieties in the various columns of life, they have given up peace. And without peace, there isn't much of us primed to love and enjoy the life God has given us. Make sure you don not condemn this admission, but to ask how the group can fight for the member's reawakening to a life of peace, with or without the resolution of their problems and disappointments.

Discuss

• How are wrong or stubborn expectations taking away our peace?
• Leader note: Remember the metaphor of a prisoner being thrilled with the hotel room, while a vacationing adult would be very disappointed in it. Same room, different perspectives.
• What can we do with the expectations we continue to use on our daily lives.
• How is confusing peace with apathy happening in our lives? Share any personal examples that come to mind, and discuss how peace could be properly experienced in the story shared.

Read

• Colossians 2:13-14
• Thoughts?
• How has a lack of personal forgiveness cost you peace?
• When we feel guilt or shame, often times it is for something we could have done better, but didn't. But more often than not, guilt and shame were passed down to us from someone else, OR, we inappropriately feel guilt/shame when what we should be feeling is foolishness for our previous ignorance. How does this distinction apply to you, and how might it help in your sense of robbed peace?

Leader note: To be clear, guilt and shame apply to something intentionally done wrong. When you steal from someone, or knowingly lie, then you are designed to feel shame for that. You are, in fact , guilty of wrong. Forgiveness applies nonetheless. Most of us, however, carry guilt and shame for foolish immaturity of the past, perspectives that we adopted to survive in our families or socially, choices we made on impulse, words that flew out of mouths when we were hurting, etc. In these cases, guilt is a useless sense. We weren't being evil, we were being stupid. That's not to say that we don't need to worry about any of the consequences of that past moment, but harboring a need to be punished ( either by ourselves, by someone else or by God) is needless. We need only to mature, to wake up and to learn from our foolishness. Guilt is trying to get us in many cases to try and go back in time and attend to a justice issue that wasn't a justice issue at all. It was a maturity issue and ignorance issue. It was a moment in our less mature past. So, you may get a chance to help a member of your group to shed needless guilt (because they weren't being evil, just stupid!) and instead, to forgive their younger, impulsive selves and to grow forward.

Apply

• How is this group a source of peace/
• How is this group a place to put up your guard and not experience peace?
• What can this group do to provide its members a place to practice letting peace rule in its collective heart?
• What stands against it?
• How are bad expectations, apathy and a lack of forgiveness toward self or others realities right now, and how can others in this group address them?
• How many of you believe that to being up any interpersonal difficulties, character issues or annoyances or even the direction of your particular group "rocks the boat", and so it seems more "peaceful" just to keep your mouth shut?
• Depending on the answer to the previous questions, and the awkwardness factor in the room, discuss this. do so with love, joy and peace.