Experience His Presence – leader material #7
LEADER TIPS for
PRESENCE ACKNOWLEDGED: A God for All My Ways (Proverbs 3:5-6)
Thanks for leading this week’s study in your Connect Group. This week’s message came from Provervbs 3. Here is some helpful background from Derek Kidner (Proverbs)
…The Book of Proverbs “is not a portrait-album or a book of manners: it offers a key to life. The samples of behavior which it holds up to view are all assessed by one criterion, which could be summed up in the question, ‘Is this wisdom or folly?’ This is a unifying approach to life, because it suits the most commonplace realms as fully as the most exalted. Wisdom leaves its signature on anything well made or well judged, from an apt remark to the universe itself, from a shrewd policy (which springs from practical insight) to a noble action (which presupposes moral and spiritual discernment). In other words, God’s wisdom is equally at home in the realms of nature and art, of ethics and politics, to mention no others, and forms a single basis of judgment for them all.”
Here’s what we hope your group members will know, feel, and do.
KNOW
We have the opportunity to conduct our lives with God’s wisdom. Few places in Scripture so extol the availability of wisdom from the Lord as does the book of Proverbs. For your reference as the study leader, take some moments with Proverbs 8, where wisdom (personified) speaks to all who will listen about the incomparable value of God’s wisdom.
This study asks participants to think specifically about how God’s wisdom can help in the particular circumstances of their lives. GIVE YOUR GROUP MEMBERS a chance to think specifically about this opportunity. It will make the study more valuable and helpful to them.
FEEL
Proverbs 3:5 urges that we should “not lean on our own understanding.” IT’S IMPORTANT THAT YOUR GROUP MEMBERS feel (a) that their own wisdom is likely inadequate for what they face, and (b) they truly need the wisdom that comes from God.
The 4th bullet in the LET’S GET STARTED section has some important questions. Take a bit of time here!