EXTRA Ideas for Adults—How God Speaks—God Speaks Through Circumstances  

Date: September 27, 2026

Session Title: God Speaks Through Circumstances 

In Focus: God uses circumstances to guide us in His will.  

Podcast—Bible Studies for Life: Adults

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Additional Teaching Options

Optional teaching ideas that incorporate current news, cultural trends, and real-world illustrations to help your group engage more deeply and view today’s issues through a clear biblical lens.

Getting Started

Read after discussing Question 1:

Several churches across multiple states partnered together for a mission trip to Manaus, Brazil. During their trip, they saw more than 600 people come to Christ. While many of these salvations came through mission work and VBS classes, others came through what looked like chance encounters.

One such encounter was with a recovering drug addict named Jonathan, whom Pastor David Denton met while visiting a local park. Pastor Denton said that Jonathan seemed interested in the gospel and ultimately accepted Christ after their conversation. Jonathan’s information was given to the Brazilian Baptist Association, who made sure the man was in touch with a local church.

Another life-changing encounter happened in downtown Manaus, when Pastor Craig Beeman met a man named Marcio. Marcio had attended church in the past but had never accepted Christ. Beeman asked if anything was stopping him from accepting salvation, and Marcio said there wasn’t. Beeman led Marcio to Christ there on the street.

Jonathan and Marcio are only two examples from the trip that show how God can use a random encounter to change lives. Just as He did in Brazil, God can change lives by a small action here in the States. Listen to the nudging of the Holy Spirit in your daily life to see how God is using your circumstances to guide you or those around you toward Him.

To read more of this article, visit baptistmessage.com and search “More than 600 saved in ‘Heart of the Amazon.’”

Learn God’s Way

Read after discussing Romans 8:31-35:

Missionaries Harold and Joyce Watkins moved to the Philippines in 1964. Harold hoped to use his agricultural experience and time as a pastor to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the Filipino people. They learned that the most affordable land was called “dead land” because it sat on mountain slopes that would wash away plants during heavy rains. After trial and error, Harold and his team developed a new agricultural technology called Sloping Agricultural Land Technology, or SALT. This new technology stopped soil erosion and enabled people to safely grow food in this sloping “dead land.” The Watkins also shared the love of Jesus with the Filipino people while teaching them how to farm new plants and livestock, meeting both physical and spiritual needs.

When the Watkins first arrived in the Philippines, they were overwhelmed by the poverty and hunger they saw. The land itself seemed to work against the people—worthless, unfarmable, written off as “dead.” But no circumstance, however hopeless it looked, could stand in the way of what God intended for the Filipino people He loved. He was for them, even when the ground beneath them said otherwise. The Filipinos didn’t know a missionary couple would arrive with the exact skills needed to turn “dead land” into fertile ground. But God knew, and no obstacle—not poverty, not eroding soil, not decades of hardship—could separate them from the good He had planned.

To read more of this article, visit imb.org and search “A Lasting Legacy: Loving the Poor”

This week’s writer for Extra is Emily Duncan. Emily is a Southern California native who lives in west Georgia with her husband and daughter. God saved her from Wicca while at a youth retreat when she was sixteen. Emily’s a member of Midway Church in Villa Rica and mentors young women as they transition from high school to college.

[Linked material and sources serve as background illustration only and do not imply endorsement beyond our biblical application.]

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Additional Questions

These optional questions are designed to warm up group conversation and guide engagement throughout each Bible passage—helping your group think critically, connect personally, and process Scripture through a clear biblical lens. For full session plans—including additional discussion questions, teaching content, and leader helps built specifically for this study—get the Adult Leader Guide, Daily Discipleship Guide Leader Guide, or QuickSource at biblestudiesforlife.com.

Icebreakers

• Looking back, can you identify a circumstance that seemed random at the time but now appears significant?
• What’s one “right place, right time” moment you’ve experienced?

Romans 8:26-27. The Holy Spirit helps us pray and navigate our circumstances. 

• When have you found yourself not knowing what to pray, and how did God meet you in that season?
• How does knowing that the Holy Spirit intercedes for you change the way you think about prayer?

Romans 8:28-30. God uses our circumstances to accomplish His will and make us more like Christ. 

• How does Paul’s explanation in verses 29-30 help us understand what “good” actually means?
• How can we learn to interpret our circumstances through the lens of God’s Word instead of interpreting God through the lens of our circumstances?

Romans 8:31-35. We can trust God to work for our benefit. 

• How can we continue trusting God’s character when our circumstances don’t change as quickly as we’d like?
• What does it mean to you to live with the confidence that “God is for us”?