When you've just suffered loss, crisis, or disaster, how can you get your life put back together? How can you become a rebuilder when you're still reeling from the loss? Tom Holladay shares from the Bible beginning in the book of Nehemiah how to be encouraged to become a rebuilder.

CATCHING UP/LOOKING AHEAD

1. If you’re meeting for the first time as a group, go around the room and share your name, where you were born, and something about your life.
2. What picture comes to your mind when you hear the word rebuild?

KEY VERSE

The God of heaven will give us success. We his servants will start rebuilding.

Nehemiah 2:20

DISCOVERY QUESTIONS

Remember, it’s not vital to get to every question every week. The goal is to find just one question that prompts some good discussion and encouragement.

1. What is it that you would like to put together again?
2. How do you find yourself reacting to your problems right
3. now—with faith, doubt, fear, anxiety, hope, or some other
4. response?
5. Is there a place in your life where you are currently
6. mourning a loss?
7. How has prayer helped you see an opportunity for faith?
8. What do you do when you don’t feel full of faith as you pray?

LIVING ON PURPOSE

God’s five purposes for each of us are evangelism, discipleship, fellow- ship, ministry, and worship. In this section, we’ll look at how we can take practical steps to fulfill one of those purposes based on the truths we’ve looked at in this study.

WORSHIP

Plan to do a one-day fast in the week ahead or to have a more extended time in prayer if you’re not able to fast. Start by focusing on who God is and then open your heart to what he wants to impress on you about who you are.

A tip on this one: If all you’re hearing are negatives about you, listen more closely. God is love, and he has words of encouragement as well as correction for his children.

PRAYING TOGETHER

Ask for God’s strength and blessing in those “this is what I want to put together again” areas that each group member shared.