Where Panic Reigns

Getting started

• What small thing reliably sends you into a panic — lost keys, a looming deadline, a phone on one per cent?
• When panic hits, what's your instinct: freeze, run, talk too much, or try to fix everything at once?

Read 1 Samuel 21:1–15

Read it together, slowly. Then, before any of the questions below: what do you notice about David? About Ahimelek? About Achish? About God, and where he is in this story?

1 Panic makes a mess

• Andrew asked us not to put Bible characters in a box: David was very much like you and me. Does it help you or unsettle you that the Bible shows David at his worst?
• Look at verses 2, 6, 8–9 and 13. List what David does in his panic. Which surprises you most?
• In panic we can't think straight. When has panic led you to say or do something you later wished you hadn't?
• Andrew warned against saying "I know just how you feel", or offering a five-minute fix. Why do those responses fall flat? What has helped you when you were struggling?
• The one good thing David did was go to the priest. Where do you go first when you're in distress? What would it look like to go to God first this week?
• Just you and GodIs there a mess you made in a moment of panic that you've never brought to God? He already knows. Bring it to him now.

2 Lord of the Sabbath, Lord of our panic

• Read Mark 2:23–28. Why do you think Jesus reached for this moment from David's life?
• Andrew said that if Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, he is Lord of our panic, our stress and our mess too. What difference would it make to really believe that?
• David runs off again, and Saul is still after him. How do you hold on to 'God is with us' when the problem doesn't go away?
• Andrew's question was "What is God saying to me in this situation?" How can opening the Bible squeeze the stress aside? What gets in the way of doing it when you're anxious?
• Who do you know who needs to hear Zoti është me ne — God is with us — this week? How could you tell them, without a five-minute fix?

3 I hold, and I am held

• David wrote Psalm 34 after Gath (see the heading). "My faith is strongest in retrospect." Looking back, where can you now see God was with you, when you couldn't see it at the time?
• Read Luke 8:22–25. Jesus asks, "Where is your faith?" — and then they sail on together. What does that tell you about how Jesus treats followers whose faith is weak?
• Teneo et teneor: I hold, and I am held. Which half of that do you find easier to believe right now?
• "Our faith is defined not by how strongly I believe, but how great our God is." How might that change the way you pray when your faith feels small?
• Andrew said there's no weakness or shame in surrendering to Christ. Why can surrender feel like failure? What would it look like for you?
• Just you and GodWhere are you gripping on so tightly that you've forgotten you are held? Tell God about it, and let him hold you.

The throne of grace

• Read Psalm 34:17–20. Andrew pointed out that 'the righteous' are people who are right with God, not perfect people. How does that change the way you hear verse 19?
• Read Hebrews 4:14–16. David ran to a priest; we have a great high priest. What does it mean for you to approach the throne of grace 'with confidence'?
• Try it together: each think of one thing that's making you anxious. Read Psalm 34:4, 8 and 18 slowly, a line at a time, then sit quietly for a minute and ask, 'What is God saying to me in this situation?'

Praying together

• Pray for anyone in the middle of a storm right now — at home, at work, in their health or in their faith.
• Pray that we'd open the Bible in the panic, and hear what God is saying.
• Close together with Andrew's line: "My faith is Christ holding me, not me holding him."