Suggested questions — feel free to pick and choose, or come up with your own.
Q1: What’s your gut reaction to this “Treasures of Darkness” topic? Is it something you find comfort in, that dark and difficult times as Christians are common (i.e. you’re not alone!), and something God can use for good? Or do you find it troubling? Perhaps something that you don’t even want to think about, as it highlights that God doesn’t always take us down the safe and easy path.
Q2: So many things in life are fragile, including life itself. Sometimes it only takes the slightest knock to bring something crashing down, to see it broken into many pieces. If you’re brave — can you share a time in your life, past or present, where this has happened? And have you been able to lift your eyes and see the goodness of God working in and through it, perhaps in unexpected ways?
Q3: Read 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 which speaks about treasures in jars of clay. Here we have a picture of something precious put inside something fragile, where death and life coexist in us at the same time. This is a very dramatic and high contrast picture.
— What are your thoughts on this passage? What does it show us?
— In what ways do we have both the death of Jesus and the life of Jesus living in us?
— Does any of this conflict with the Christian life we thought we had signed up to? (i.e. did we think it would be easy?)
Q4: Read 2 Corinthians 4:16-18. Have you seen this mechanism at play — that as the material world and our physical bodies let us down, it very much throws us into dependance on God, which actually renews our faith and our inner selves? Can you share personal examples of this in action?
Q5: In a way, the inverted valley might speak of many people’s story of salvation, that in the brokenness of life we called out for God, and the script was flipped. But can you think of any examples where God’s done this to someone already following Jesus, where God used them in their weakness, or that their difficult experience helped them to reach others? And are there any among you that need prayer for God to do this in your own life?