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- Herausgeber: IVP Formatio
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Serie: Sensible Shoes Series
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
The journeys of Hannah, Meg, Charissa, and Mara take unexpected turns in Barefoot, the third book of the Sensible Shoes series. In this study guide author Sharon Garlough Brown has crafted a practical resource to help you process the characters' stories and explore the novel's spiritual formation themes more deeply. You'll find twelve weeks of daily Scripture readings, reflection questions, and invitations to prayer, with weekly discussion questions and practices for groups to do together. Each week also features a list of spiritual disciplines used by the characters that you can incorporate into your own life with God. Individually or with a group, as you walk with the women of Sensible Shoes on holy ground, you'll be invited to encounter God in significant new ways.
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Barefoot
Contents
Introduction
Many readers of Barefoot have requested a guide for exploring the spiritual formation themes within the novel and for processing the characters’ journeys with God and each other. In response, I’m delighted to provide this study guide as a resource for individuals and groups.
Here you’ll find twelve weeks of daily Scripture reading, reflection questions, and invitations to prayer. Some weeks you’ll have five days of reflection questions with the sixth day designated as a review day. Other weeks days five and six will both provide opportunities for prayerful review. At the end of each week you’ll also find spiritual disciplines you may wish to incorporate more intentionally into your life with God, and group discussion questions and exercises to explore and practice in community.
You can decide whether to read Barefoot first in its entirety and then return to do a slow study with the guide, or whether to read it a section at a time, matching your pace to the daily questions. I do recommend keeping a travelogue of your journey. Even if you aren’t in the habit of using a journal, you’ll benefit from having a record of what you’re noticing as you move forward.
Not every question will resonate with you. That’s okay. You don’t need to answer every question every day. But do watch for any impulse to avoid a question because it agitates you or makes you feel uncomfortable. That’s probably the very question you need to spend time pondering! If you don’t have time to answer the questions you want to reflect on, simply mark them and return on the review days. If something in the chapter speaks to you and isn’t addressed in a question, spend time journaling and praying about it.
The daily Scripture texts echo the themes of the daily readings from the book. I recommend reading the Scripture first so that the Word shapes and frames your pondering.
I pray you’ll encounter God in significant ways as you read, reflect, and pray. May you find many opportunities to remove your shoes and worship on holy ground.
Sharon Garlough Brown
Reading for Week One: Chapter One
Week One: Day One
CHAPTER ONE:MEG (PP. 11-16)
Scripture: Psalm 62:1-8
1. What words or images come to mind when you hear the word resilient? What does it mean to be resilient in hope?
2. Meg tells Hannah she often has “imaginary conversations with people who aren’t here” (p. 13). What kinds of conversations or voices typically play in your head? Spend time offering these voices to Jesus and hearing his words of truth.
3. Both Meg and Hannah struggle to be on the receiving end of care. Why? How practiced are you at receiving love and care from others? If it is hard for you to receive, why might this be?
4. “Even with everything [Meg] had seen about God’s faithfulness, even with everything she’d experienced the past few months about God’s presence and love, she still found it hard to trust. So that’s what she was learning to offer—the truth. To God. To others. To herself. No denying her fears. No stuffing her sorrow. All the anxiety and the heartache, the regret and the guilt, the longings and the desires, the wrestling and the sin, the past and present and future—all of it belonged at the feet of Jesus. All of it” (p. 15). What are you learning to offer to Jesus? What do you need courage to see?
5. The Spirit’s echoing word for Meg is hope. Is there any particular word or theme echoing for you? If nothing immediately comes to mind, spend some time listening for one.
6. “For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him” (Psalm 62:5 NRSV). Read this verse slowly several times. Does it describe your practice or your longing? What would it mean to wait in silence and with hope for God? Offer your response to God in prayer. Then spend time sitting in silence.
Week One: Day Two
CHAPTER ONE:MARA (PP. 17-22)
Scripture: Matthew 5:43-48
1. What family memories, traditions, or heirlooms are important to you? Why? Offer these to God with gratitude. If there are any that have been lost over the years, speak to God about the emotions that rise within you as you remember them.
2. What “gotcha games” are Mara and Tom playing? When are you tempted to retaliate or get even? Offer these impulses to God in prayer.
3. Bring to mind an occasion when you felt too angry to speak or too disappointed to cry. Is there anything unresolved to offer God in prayer?
4. Read Matthew 5:43-48 aloud several times. Bring to mind people who make life difficult for you. What is God’s specific invitation to you? Journal your response.
Week One: Day Three
CHAPTER ONE: HANNAH (PP. 23-30)
Scripture: Psalm 127:1-2
1. When are you tempted or most likely to lose patience? Do you see any patterns? Which spiritual practice(s) could help counteract the gravitational pull toward impatience?
2. What kinds of stories are most likely to evoke your compassion? Why? How readily do you practice intercessory prayer, generosity, mercy, or serving others in need? Who is God calling you to serve in these ways?
3. “The slowing down, the paying attention, the deliberate rest and unplugging, the transition from the driven life to the received life—all of this was a paradigm shift [Hannah] still needed time to process and integrate” (p. 26). What about you? What’s the pace of your life? In what ways can you practice the discipline of slowing down and paying attention today? Or, if you’ve been practicing like Hannah, what fruit do you see?
