Study guide to
Exodus: Our Story, Too!
An 18-week Study
Our journeys in the Holy Spirit, into
a deep relationship with God are personal to each of us, but best done in a
community. There we are held and taught and nurtured and inspired. For that is the
nature of the kingdom of God—it is a true community of equals, all standing in
the presence of God.
Take the opportunity to address these
questions as if your relationship with God depended on your answers, which it
does. You don’t have to answer them all, only the ones that call you. In a discussion
group hold all sharing in confidence, as sacred. Do not relate anyone else’s
story to anyone and only speak of it if the person who told it brings it up.
These questions are to reflect on, to journal about,
and to discuss. You will find them cycling through your life, going deeper and
deeper each time, inviting you into an ever deepening relationship with God.
1st Week: Introduction
pp. 7-20
Do you feel enslaved to your culture?
How does it limit you and how you think? What is toxic about your culture?
Is God calling you out of slavery? To
a new way of thinking? To a new and fuller life?
Are you still in charge of your life?
Or are you letting God lead you where He will? Are you willing—100%--to go all
the way with God, wherever He would take you?
2nd Week: Part
I: Awakening, Chapter 1: Introduction pp. 21-28
How does God call you out of slavery?
How difficult would it be to leave your own slave status behind? Could you walk
away from the known, but problematic world into the unknown? Does slavery seem
normal to you?
Do you believe in God’s love and
forgiveness for you? Or is God more apt to be a punishing God? Do you know God
from your own experience of God or only from what others have told you?
How do you see yourself? What is your
self-image? What do you lack, what do you have to make up for? Is your
self-image stuck in the past? Can you own all that you are? All that you’ve
said and done? All that was done to you?
What in your life is more important
that God to you? Can you name the “gods” that you bow down to, that you put
before God?
3rd Week: Part
I: Awakening, Chapter 2: God, Egypt and the Israelites pp. 29-39
What is your covenant with God? Did
you ever think that the Promised Land is the kingdom on Earth? How is God
showing you the way out of slavery?
What ties you to this world and
thereby keeps you out of the kingdom? Have you been “dumped” into another life,
by death of a loved one or loss of possessions or natural disaster? What do you think of when you contemplate the
wilderness?
Can you imagine what a “greater life” in God would
be like? Describe God fully as you see Him.
4th Week: Part
I: Awakening, Chapter 3: Leaving Slavery, Plagues pp. 41-50
What
outer influences keep you tied to “Egypt?” What inner voices keep you enslaved?
Can you identify the source(s) of your own inner fears and anxieties about
leaving the world?
What is the “still, small voice” of
the Holy Spirit saying to you? What is the invitation? And how do your respond?
To whom will you be true? To God or to my own ego? What will it cost you to
surrender your will to God’s?
Will you follow your own inner
“Moses,” your soul’s calling? To your own true self, your soul? To God? Who is
it to be who governs you?
5th Week: Part
I: Awakening, Chapter 4: Cast of Characters, Freedom, Suffering pp. 51-58
What
does Moses represent in this story? And Pharaoh? What does freedom mean to you?
Freedom to? Freedom from?
Can you face and own your own
resistance to leaving Egypt? What do I have to die to? What is the new life God
calls you to?
How do you deal with suffering in your
life? Deny the pain? Do you look for God in the suffering, in being present for
you? Do you seek to learn what you need to learn from the suffering? Do you add
to your own suffering by resisting it? Are you living in the present? Or the
past? Or the future?
6th Week: Part
I: Awakening, Chapter 5: Conclusions pp. 59-64
What
do you think now of “Egypt?” Of what you left behind? Are you still clinging to
worldly things, people, ways of being? The past?
Are you aware of God’s presence? Was it difficult for you to leave? To
surrender to God’s call? What do you think of the various voices entrenched in
you? In our culture?
What does your inner “pharaoh”
represent? Have you disengaged from the past? Are you willing to be in limbo
for a long time? What are you anticipating now in your story?
7th Week: Part
II: The Wilderness, Chapter 1: Introduction to the Wilderness pp. 65-79
What needs to be purged in you? What
stands between you and God?
How would you describe the wilderness?
What is being in limbo like for you? Did
you say “Yes!” to God? Or were you propelled into the wilderness by forces
beyond your control?
How has God provided for you in the
wildernesses of your life? What are you longing for now? Do you wish you could
go right back to “Egypt?” Or have you found your real identity in God? What
have you had to let go of in the wilderness?
8th Week: Part
II: The Wilderness, Chapter 2: God, Laws, Moses pp. 81-96
When
you’ve been in the wilderness, how has God been present to you? How did He meet
your needs, bring comfort to you? How aware of God are you in your daily life?
Do you hear his “still, small voice?” Of His offers of comfort? Of Him
challenging you to give up this or that story or suffering to Him? How aware
are you of God? Do you live in the mind of Christ?
Do you live the 10 Commandments? Is
God first in your life? Do you love God with all of yourself? All of your life?
How do you treat all other people? Do you live the Spirit of the Law? What attitudes
or history or suffering do you hang onto that come between you and your ability
to love?
What happens in you when your soul is
resting in God, when your inner Moses is spending time with the Lord? Are you
at peace, waiting, or anxious to get on with things. Do you allow time to
commune with the Lord?
9th Week: Part
II: The Wilderness, Chapter Three: Israelites, Conclusions pp. 97-103
Do you grumble about what is in your
life? Hang onto your own way of doing things? Are you “stiff-necked” and
inconstant like the Israelites? Without
your inner “Moses” are you lost and drifting away from God? What attitudes or
circumstances or decisions do you need to eat/to own?
Will you listen to God? Will you heed
what He says? Will you conform to His ways? Will you absolutely trust in the
Lord?
10th Week: Part
III: From Egypt to Freedom, Chapter 1: Introduction, The Law pp.
105-115
Are you willing to dig deep into your
unconscious attitudes and ways of thinking and to let go of what stands between
you and God? Are you willing to own up to all that you are, all that you’ve
said and done, all that was done to you?
Will you forgive yourself and others? Will you
love God with all that you are? Is God’s law written on your heart? What would
that mean? Will you be holy? And what does that mean to you? Will you let God
lead you through this whole process to holiness?
11th Week: Part
III: From Egypt to Freedom, Chapter 2: Israelites and Rebellion pp. 117-132
Is what you present to the world the
same as your own inner state of being? Are you living in truth? Do you have
integrity in all that you do? Are you humble, knowing that you am the same as
everyone else and that Christ alone stands above you?
Do you give God the credit for the good in you?
And take responsibility for the rest? Have you given up all your rebellion?
Will you align yourself with His will in everything and in His timing? Will you
serve God and all His people?
12th Week: Part
III: From Egypt to Freedom, Chapter 3: Purging, Holiness, Purpose, Illumination pp. 133-148
Are you resting in Christ, living in
the mind of Christ? Have you given up your self-centeredness, turned it over to
God to heal? Are you moving towards
purity and holiness? Is His word in your mouth and in your heart?
What has your conversion been like? Or
do you have yet to experience it?
13th Week: Part
III: From Egypt to Freedom, Chapter 4: Purpose pp. 149-179
Have you experienced God’s step by
step plan for your life? What is He calling you to do? Have you said, “Yes!”? Do you praise God for what He is about to do
in your life and in others’? Are you partnering with God in using your gifts
and talents? How is God using your
weaknesses or areas of challenge? Are you a “wounded-healer?” Do you know your
purpose as God has revealed it to you?
How
are you called to advance God’s kingdom on this Earth?
Do you follow God’s lead in all
things? Have you experienced how your choices bring you blessings or
curses? Are you choosing life? Are God
and His actions in your life highly visible to you? Can you see yourself and
God clearly? Has all rebellion died in you? Has even your inner Moses who
brought you thus far now died? And your inner Joshua stepped into the breach?
14th Week: Part
III: From Egypt to Freedom, Chapter 5: Conclusions pp. 181-285
As
you stand on the banks of the River Jordan, do you feel free of the world’s
influence and all that it has meant to you? Has God revealed your purpose and
are you living that purpose?
Has all rebellion died in you? Have
all of your own expectations, assumptions about life and personal preferences
been healed and transformed? Are you ready to receive the Holy Spirit? And to
live in total partnership with God?
15th Week: Part
IV: The Promised Land, Chapter 1: Introduction, The Israelites pp. 187-198
Do you see the faithfulness of the
Israelites as they ready to cross the Jordan River? Can you imagine what union
with God will be like? Are you aware of the process of purgation and
illumination that has prepared them for union with God? Can you imagine the
challenges of conquering the kingdoms that they will face?
What is the process for crossing the
River Jordan, for entering Canaan/the kingdom? What is the symbolism of
following the Ark of the Covenant, being circumcised and celebrating Passover?
What is God doing with and for the
Israelites and Joshua? What sin is revealed in the defeat of the Israelites at
Ai? How does God provide for each of the tribes?
16th Week: Part
IV: The Promised Land, Chapter 2: Union with God, Characters, etc. pp.199-216
How would you describe union with God?
What longing would union with God satisfy in you? How do the stories about John G. Paton,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Fr. Walter Ciszek affect how you see yourself? What
responsibility do you carry for promoting the kingdom of God?
17th Week: Part
IV: The Promised Land, Chapter 3: Lessons from the book of Joshua pp. 217-221
How would you describe the kingdom of
God? What do you yearn for? If God is the answer to all our questions,
what is God to you?
The message to be “strong and
courageous” bookends the Book of Joshua. How does it apply to you? In what
areas of your life? With what issues, which people?
How do you hold fast to the Lord your
God?
18th Week: Part
V: Conclusions pp. 223-231
Can you describe the four stage of the
classical spiritual journey: awakening, purgation, illumination, and union?
Where do you stand with God right now?
What is God calling you to right now?
Can you hear his “still, small voice” more clearly now? What kind of
relationship is God calling you to? What is He asking of you?
What is the covenant with God that you
have signed onto? Are you giving 100% of yourself to that covenant?
