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Week 2: Creation and fall
Each week there will be a key reading, and a full reading. You might only have time for the key reading, and that's okay. In fact, that's why there is a key reading: so you don't get overwhelmed. Just read what you can. You might start with the key reading and come back to the full reading later. Just do whatever works best for you. This is about your spiritual growth... it's not a task to complete.
Key reading:
Genesis 1:26-28, 31, 2:18, 21-25, 3:1-7
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them.... And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day... Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed... Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
Discussion questions:
Use these questions to lead a discussion with your spouse, your family, a friend, or even just with yourself.
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On Sunday, Pastor Paul said, "Your desires reveal your design" What is a desire or distress in your life right now? How does that reveal something about the way that God made you?
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Spend time in prayer this week asking God: (1) to reveal to you where your desires might be broken, and (2) to redeem your desires and distress.
Prayer:
Spend a moment in prayer, asking God to help you make sense of your story and your desires in light of His story. If you'd like, you can pray this prayer:
Dear God, thank you for teaching me about how You designed me. I have desires and areas of distress. Sometimes those things are broken in me. I confess this to you because I know You are faithful to forgive me, and to redeem both my desires and my distress. Give me eyes to see how You want to work that redemption in my life. Amen.