Don't Miss the Point | Learning Guide

March 26th, 2023

10:15am I Facebook Live

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Title

Don't Miss the Point​

Text

Lamentations 5 (NET)​

Introduction:​

As an obsessive “fixer” and “reformer,” I spend a lot of time thinking about how to do things just right and better than the last time. Things I tell myself on a daily basis are, “We learn things now the hard way so that we can do them better next time!” “Every failure is an opportunity to learn and improve!” “I guess I haven’t learned that yet…but I will!” These aren’t bad things to tell myself or the students I advise, but they are things that make me always look ahead in the journey and sometimes miss what’s happening in the moment. I do the same thing with grief and suffering. I want to learn and improve my way out of bad circumstances. It’s second nature for me to perform a root-cause analysis to figure out exactly how things came to be so that I can avoid them in the future and never let myself, or the people I love, encounter these negative things again. But what if that’s missing the point? What if there’s something there to learn that’s far more important than just, “how do I not have to feel this way ever again?”

Grace and peace,

Jennifer Acuff and the leadership team

Take Away:

We can lament with God and with confidence that God will not walk away. Whether we have done things or things have been done to us to cause harm and suffering, God still walks with us and allows us to explore ourselves and this relationship. Our greatest growth happens when we engage with God during great suffering, and God offers true restoration through relationship and the hope that Jesus brings.

How Does This Fit with Become, Belong, Believe?

We don’t have to put God on a shelf while we try to get through negative circumstances. Rather, with the help of our community, we can walk through grief and suffering, learning about ourselves and God, and the freedom we have in that relationship.

What's Next?

Palm Sunday!​

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