Job 3:1-26

Main Idea: Our faith allows us to grieve deeply without succumbing to hopelessness and encourages us to comfort those who do.

Head Change: To know that grief and faith are not mutually exclusive.

Heart Change: To feel free to grieve deeply and to extend compassion to the depressed and grieving.

Life Change: To allow yourself to grieve heartache and to mourn with the grieving.

Who are your longstanding friends—those who have seen you grow and change for many years? What do you enjoy about sharing your life with them?

Read Job 3:1–26.

When pain threatens to make us focus only on ourselves, what should we remember?

When others mourn, how are we supposed to react?

Read Job 3:1–10.

When you are going through difficulties, whether momentary or life-changing, in what ways can it be difficult to face the future?

What do we have to be thankful for, even in seasons of suffering? What would it look like to reminisce on the good times with a person you have lost?

In what ways is it good to have others acknowledge our grief? At what point can our demands for affirmation become myopic or self-centered?

Read Job 3:11–19.

In what ways could suffering help us relate to people with very different experiences from our own?

What healing strategies have helped you or someone you know who’s suffered from depression? What could you do to remind yourself or someone close to you who is suffering of the hope they have in Christ?

Read Job 3:20–26.

What have you done to communicate with God when you couldn’t or didn’t want to pray?

How have the prayers of others comforted and encouraged you? Who could you ask to pray for you when you don’t have words beyond sighs and groans?

What emotions did you feel as you read his complaints? To what extent have you felt the freedom to be that honest with God? Where would you draw the line in how you speak to God?

Who in your life lets you be completely honest with your feelings? Have you felt free to tell God everything on your mind? Why, or why not?

How surprised are you to know that God welcomes your lament? What could it look like for you to faithfully lament and grieve?

What does it mean to you that God understands your sorrow and suffering?

What habits can you begin or continue to encourage honesty with God and others, especially when you suffer?