Cross Roads
By Wm. Paul Young
Readers’ Group Discussion Questions
1. Were you drawn in by the story ofCross Roads? Why, or why not?
2. Pain, loss, and finally abandonment combined to become an “almost unendurable desolation” in Tony’s life, causing him to erect walls that created “an imagination of safety” while keeping him isolated and solitary.
Why do you think that suffering draws some people closer to God and causes others to distance themselves from God?
What has been the pattern in your life?
3. “Jesus, Bethlehem’s gift to the world,” had been the love of Tony’s mother’s life.
How did her loss, and then the loss of his son, affect Tony’s view of God?
If you or someone you know has faced such a loss or tragedy, how has it impacted your/their relationship with God?
4. Jack asks Tony, “What exactly do you think hell is?” Later, Jack tells Tony, “Hell is believing and living in the real when it is not the Truth. . . . Whatever you believe about death and hell, it is truly not separation.”
Do you agree with Tony’s definition of hell as ‘NOT’ a place of separation from God?
Did Jack’s definition convince you? Why, or why not?
5. Tony discovers that the “habitation” where he finds himself, which he had declared as “a no-man’s-land of loss, a scrap heap not worth saving,” is actually the landscape that depicts his life.
If you were to describe your life in terms of a landscape, what would it look like?
Does what you see trouble you, as it did Tony or have you seen the landscape change?
6. Tony is told that “even though death is a monstrous evil, human beings have imagined it into something much more powerful than it deserves, than it actually is… For now, understand that a significant reason why you fear death is because of your atrophied and minuscule perception of life.”
Do you agree that is true? Why, or why not?
What did you think of the statement that when Jesus rose from the dead, “death’s illusion of power and dominance” was broken?
7. Jesus described to Tony the “oneness” of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—“…essentially the one was singular in essence and yet a plurality of persons, a community.”
How do you perceive the Trinity?
Did their conversation change your thinking? If so, how?
What difference does it make that “God is community”?
8. Despite being drawn to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, Tony despises the Father as “the God of the Old Testament.” One problem with that is, as Jesus tells him, “Like Father, like Son.”
If you wrestle with this issue as well, describe what troubles you.
Did Young’s story alter your view of “the God of the Old Testament”?
9. Jack tells Tony, “You are a root, and only God knows what the flower will be.”
What did he mean by that?
What does this have to do with the “life-after”?
How does this make you feel about your life today?
10. How does Jack address “the problem of pain”?
What is God able to do with “the bad, the cruel, the wrong”?
What role does forgiveness play in this story?
11. Ego is a crafty inner voice whose words “contained a self-fueling logic, tapping into resentments and bitterness that [Tony] now recognized lay behind many of his actions.”
Are you able to identify specific ways that Ego plays a similar role in your life?
Can you identify ‘lies’ that have had a significant impact on your life?
How is it that “For God so loved the world . . .” has the power to defeat it?
12. Tony’s “superior self” tells him “you are utterly alone, just as you deserve to be.”
Why is that such a devastating lie to believe?
What has been your experience with feelings of aloneness and isolation?
13. Why is God the Father portrayed as a little girl in this story?
Why is she named Hope?
What does she mean when she tells Tony to “not light your own fires” and to “get angry and tell the truth”?
14. What is the difference between building walls and establishing boundaries in our lives?
Why can’t the walls just be torn down instantly?
15. How does Tony finally break free from being “stuck in the broken part of the world”?
In what ways can you relate to being stuck in a broken part of the world?
How can one break free?
16. What were some of the thingsCross Roadsteaches about life that you agreed with and disagreed with?
17. What part of the book spoke to you the most, and why?
18. What part of the book created the most questions or pain?
Why did you have a hard time with that part of the book?
19. Did reading this book change, challenge, and/or strengthen your image of God?
If so, in what way?
How is Young’s description of God different from your concept of God?
20. On a scale of 1–5, how would you rankCross Roads, and why?