• Our unanswered prayers can be attributed to God’s world, God’s will or God’s war

• Miracles have to be the exception rather than the rule because our world is infinitely complicated

• The will of God is often far darker and more painful than we imagine for reasons we can’t immediately understand

• Spiritual warfare is real. Sometimes we need to stop ghting against God, and start fighting with him against the enemy of our souls

• “There is hope, but that hope will not invalidate your pain...” - Alain Emerson

• What did you find most helpful, inspiring or challenging in what Pete Greig, Gemma Hunt and Alain Emerson shared?

• If you could ask God one “Why?” question, what would it be?

• On the cross Jesus asks God “Why have you forsaken me?” Think of a time that you felt abandoned or deserted by God when you needed him most.

God’s will: In the book of Isaiah, God says: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” (Isaiah 55:8)

• Looking back on past disappointments, does anyone have an example of a time when God knew best, even though you didn’t think so at the time?

• Why do we find it so hard to trust God?

God’s world: Pete Greig quotes C.S. Lewis saying that, “the very conception of a common, and therefore stable, world demands that [miracles] should be extremely rare.”

• Do you agree with this?

• Should we pray less for miracles or simply trust more when our prayers aren’t answered the way we want?

God’s war:

• Is it possible for a tragedy not to be God’s ‘fault’? Do you agree with Pete Greig’s statement that we tend to blame God for things that are Satan’s doing?

• Alain Emerson shares about the power of hope alongside the reality of pain. Do we as a community lean too hard on one side of this equation, either focusing so much on hope that we aren’t honest about pain, or focusing so much on pain that we fail to have hope? How can we hold both hope and pain together?

• How are you feeling about the things covered in this session? Are there any areas in which you’d appreciate prayer - get in touch.

• What would your most personal “why?” question to God be?

• Take time to pause and re ect on Christ of Saint John of the Cross, by Salvador Dali (available online at www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_of_Saint_John_of_the_Cross)

Today we’ve tried to understand better the things we can, and to trust better when we can’t understand. Finish now with a prayer of relinquishment written by George Macdonald. It’s not an easy prayer but you may like to open your hands as a sign of surrender.

Afresh I seek thee, lead me—once more I pray—

Even should it be against my will, thy way.

Let me not feel thee foreign any hour,

Or shrink from thee as an estranged power.

Through doubt, through faith, through bliss, through stark dismay,

Through sunshine, wind, or snow, or fog, or shower,

Draw me to thee who art my only day.

• Watch The Mission, directed by Roland José (1986).

Books

• Luminous Dark, Alain Emerson

• The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis

• Night, Elie Wiesel

• The Crucified God, Jurgen Moltmann

• God on Mute, Pete Greig