Application Questions:

1. How are you coming into Advent season this year? Are you excited and hopeful? Are you weary, anxious, or grieving? What unique comforts and challenges does this season present to you?

2. The psalmist describes his present situation of great difficulty, not simply as hard, but caused by God and contradictory to His promises. Think of a time, now or in the past, when your circumstances told you that God was against you. How does the psalmist’s confrontation strike you?

3. The psalmist cries out in his difficulty with longing for God’s promises to become real. Are your Christmas celebrations helping you to wait for Jesus, or distracting you from the waiting? How might the psalmist’s words hep to increase your longing for Jesus’ appearing?