I believe in a day when I will not grieve. I believe in a day when I will not struggle to believe in a God I can not see. I believe there will be a day when I am able to speak to God in ways that seem less silly than praying in an empty room. For now I struggle to believe, to pray, to endure. When I die I will be with Jesus and I will experience unmixed joy.
John 16
- What phrase that Jesus used confused his disciples?
- What would the world be doing at the time the disciples would be weeping?
- What will happen when the disciples see Jesus again?
- Is Jesus talking about after he rises again or after they die?
- What does it mean to you that you will see Jesus?
Going Deeper
Observation
- What will people who kill the disciples think?
- What does Jesus do for his disciples’ good?
- Who will guide the disciples into all truth?
- Who will Jesus tell them about plainly?
- Why should the disciples take heart?
Interpretation
- Why is it good to face a Christian life expecting hardship and persecution?
- What is pneumatology and what do you know in that discipline?
- Why is it important for a Christian to grow in knowledge and truth?
- What is Jesus’ role with regard to the Father?
- If the world killed Jesus, how could he claim to have overcome it exactly?
Application
- Who has given you a hard time regarding your faith? How does it encourage you to know that Jesus saw that coming?
- How does www.wikipedia.org classify pneumatology? Why is the Holy Spirit not paramount?
- How could you increase your knowledge in the area of pneumatology?
- If Jesus came to connect people with the Father, does your relationship with the Father reflect his efforts? What role do the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit play in your life as distinct persons?
- How can eradicating the fear of death make a person powerful?
Plymothian 
Praise God for that blessed Spirit that has overcome the world! The Spirit of Christ is in us to bring the wondrous reality of God’s future to bear in the present through His church! God sneers at the Wikipedia article that minimizes Him, because He called an insignificant little peasant girl to pray the Magnificat. God laughs when Dawkins outrules Him because social change in South Africa would never have happened without that smiley little black Christian who prayed for hours every morning (Desmond Tutu). God has overcome the world, and He does it through the humble, the meek, the losers, the outcasts, the marginalized, and the oppressed. This is amazing. This is a God who defies our sensibilities. Nietzsche didn’t know what to do but discount Him as a sissy. Every day, I disbelieve in Him and act out of an impoverished worldview all too often. But that doesn’t change the fact that God has, on the Cross and in the Resurrection, overcome the world through Jesus! I am assured a place in God’s new world! I am enlivened to bring that world into the present with God’s Spirit at my heart and creativity at my back! Praise God, for He is merciful!