Overcoming despair

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Doug Brown

1. What are some of your favorite songs that lift your spirit and help you place confidence in the Living Eternal God? When was the last time you sang such a song? Do you write music? Put some of the Psalms to music and sing them back to God.

2. Make a list of songs that inspire you. If you are able, download them on a MP3 Player or IPOD and sing along with as you start your day or throughout the day. Share your list with your group and inspire each other.

3. Look up verses on God’s nature and character that give you help and hope. (Example Ps 46:1). Again, share your list with your group and discuss why and how these attributes have become meaningful to you.

4. Where do you go to get alone and simply cry out to God? How long has it been that you’ve gone there? What have you experienced when you’ve been there and what have you learned from that experience?

5. Who do you know who has gone through anguish of heart and has come through it like the Psalmist in Psalm 22? How about having a coffee with them and ask them how have they gotten to the place they are in now as they went through their “ valley of the shadow of death”?

6. Read Psalm 22 out loud. What insights do you discover as how David processes through his anguish? What will you take with you in your current circumstance.