1. Describe how you feel when you have to wait for an answer to prayer?
2. Look back on your Christian life and see how God has worked even through difficulties and times of waiting to bring about something good?
3. Think of a kairos moment in your Christian life. Thank God for what He did.

1. Discuss any situations in your life in which you need to stand back and trust God’s timing and will.
2. Have there been times in your life when God has used unexpected people or circumstances to answer your prayers? What can you learn from this?
3. What does it mean to you that Jesus was prepared to come into the world as a human being?

1. What does it mean to you personally to have to wait for things for which you are praying?
2. Have you ever laughed at a promise of God?

3. Do you think it significant that Isaac was a willing adult in this story?

1. Are there people in your life for whom you are the main point of contact with the Christian faith? What might that mean for you?
2. Are you aware of God’s timing in placing you in particular places at particular times? Might there be people He is sending you to speak to and to serve?

1. Why do you think God included this Gentile woman Rahab in His Son’s line?
2. Are there any people in your life whom you have written off as disinterested in God or beyond redemption? Why? How might you begin to think and act differently towards them?
3. Can you think of a time when you had to trust God and step out in faith as Rahab did? What happened?

1. Why do you think God chose a foreigner like Ruth to be in the line of His Son?
2. Have you ever had to trust God in difficult circumstances? What was that like? Did you experience God’s faithfulness to you?

Group activity

Hand out two pieces of paper to each person in the group. Say the Lord’s Prayer together. When it comes to the line ‘forgive us our sins’, take a moment of quiet to each write on one of the pieces of paper the things for which you are asking God’s forgiveness. Then gather the papers in a large saucepan, light a match and let the papers burn. If you have an open fireplace, burn that the papers there. As you say the line ‘as we forgive those who sin against us’, take Your second piece of paper and write down the names of those you need to forgive. Ask for God’s help to forgive these people, and again gather the papers and burn them. Then continue saying the rest of the Lord’s Prayer together.

1. Why is it important that Jesus’ coming was prophesied hundreds of years earlier? 
Have you grasped the wonder of the truth that Jesus is God and that David prophesied that God would one day come into the world as a man?
2. How do you feel when you hear Jesus demeaned and His name used as a swear word in our culture? Why do people use His name in this way – what does it say about the situation we live in today?
3. What does it mean to take refuge in God in your own Christian life?

1. Do you have friends who ask for more proof of who Jesus is? How can you keep on praying for them and witnessing to them?
2. How do you cope with opposition to Christ and Christians? How can we be grace filled and confident in the face of opposition?

1. Do you think ‘the people walking in darkness’ is a description to which our culture can relate? What are the sources of gloom and distress around you?
2. How can you be involved in making the light of Christ known locally where you live?
3. Can you think of areas of darkness in your own life that have been transformed by the light of Christ? Thank Him for His work in your life.

1. Do you think much about the second coming of Christ? How does the truth of Christ’s imminent return shape your decision-making?
2. Do you feel ready for Christ’s return or are there things you want to do before that day? List these things and lay them before God, asking Him to shape your days and transform your priorities in the coming year.

1. Have you ever heard the term ‘compassion fatigue’? Do you think Christians are susceptible to become weary of doing good? Do you detect this in your own life?
2. Have you ever been on the receiving end of compassion or kindness from another person when you were hanging on by a thread? Thank God for that person and ask Him to help you to be involved with others in the same way.
3. Are there people you know who you have written off as beyond the scope of redemption? What do you need to do about this?

1. Jesus is to be worshipped by people of every culture, language and ethnicity. How can this truth shape your church’s mission?
2. Do you find your own belief in Christ as the only way to God, shaken in our pluralistic society? Can you echo the man in John’s Gospel, ‘Lord I believe’?

1. Do you find it difficult to wait for answers to prayer? What have you been praying for for a long time?
2. Have you been let down by other human beings who have failed to deliver on their promises to you? Have you allowed this to shape your perception of God and other people?
3. Have you thanked God for what He has done in your life recently? How could you get into a habit of thankfulness in your Christian life?