START TALKING

When have you thought you knew how to fix something or manage something so you didn't ask anyone for help or didn't do it a different way that you were told to try? How did it end up working out (or not working out!)? When did you finally try it another way or look to someone else for help? What ended up being the result?

START THINKING

Read Daniel 4:1-4. Verses 1-3 serve as a "bookend" to this story that Nebuchadnezzer is about to tell. What do these three verses show us about where he is with God as he is writing this?

Then verse 4 serves as a confession that shows where he was before he got to his current place with God. How does verse 4 show us that pride is going to be the theme of this story? What does it tell us about the "fools gold" or false hope of comfort and the false peace of success and prosperity? How are comfort and pride connected?

START SHARING

Read Daniel 4:5-8. Nebuchadnezzer tries everything else first before turning to God, even though he had seen God work and move in powerful ways before this. Why is the pride of thinking we know what is best so hard to shake even when we've seen God move and work, too? When have you tried everything else before finally turning to God and his ways? What were you afraid of like Nebuchadnezzer that kept you from trusting the Lord?

Even though Nebuchadnezzer finally turns to God by calling Daniel in, he still hasn't submitted to the Lord or been truly changed - he's only been impressed. What is the difference? How have you experienced this and what was the difference when you allowed God to truly change you?

Read Daniel 4:31-34. When Nebuchadnezzer finally looked to heaven and humbled himself, he found grace and got what he really needed. How have you experienced this? What was the grace you experienced and received? What did you learn and experience about God in that?

START DOING

What do you sense the Holy Spirit telling you to do with the truths from this passage and from this story? What are you going to do about it?

What most speaks to you about how pride affects you from the list of points below:

- Comfort and pride go hand in hand.
- Trying everything else first is the work of pride.
- Being impressed by God is not the same thing as being humbled and changed by God.

How can you work to humble yourself and truly follow God based on how you answered from the list above?

How will humbling yourself in these ways help you to experience Jesus and be more like him?

START PRAYING

Pray for each other and ways that we all face pride each and every day. Pray that we would each allow our Father to oppose the pride in our lives so that we can have a pure and true relationship with Him, and so that as a result the other people in our lives will experience Jesus, too!