Connect:
- Do you have a favourite musician/movie star who was once famous, but who’s now invisible/obsolete? How do they seem to be coping with that?
Discuss:
2. In what ways did each character in this Sunday’s story from Genesis 29 – Jacob, Rachel, and Leah – feel invisible? What are the clues from Scripture that they felt that way?
3. Pastor Keith mentioned that the danger when feeling invisible is to look for a solution by giving our hearts to the “One True Love”. What kinds of things could become the “One True Love” in a person’s life?
4. One of the quotes Pastor Keith shared comes from C.S. Lewis:
Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excited us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I’m not speaking of unsuccessful marriages or trips or so on. I’m speaking of the very best possible ones. There is always something we have grasped at in that first moment of longing that just fades away in the reality. The spouse may be a good spouse, the scenery has been excellent, it has turned out to be a good job, but ‘it’, ‘it’!! The thing that we thought was going to be the center of it always evades us.”
How do you relate to this? What types of things does the world offer that, in Lewis’ words, do not quite keep their promise?
5. Have you ever had a time in your life when you felt “invisible”? (Maybe even right now?) What unique temptations did you/do you face when feeling that way?
6. Leah eventually responded to feeling invisible in a different way that set her free. How did she respond? How does her response give you courage and hope?
Pray:
Take time to pray for the needs represented in your group, especially any that may have resulted from the discussion time. Also, pray for those who need meet the Invisible Man during this Advent season so they can be fully seen and fully loved.
