God's Deliverer Conquers The Enemy

It was fun to tell this favorite Bible story -- David and Goliath. In opening time, we did a "fill in the blank" word puzzle with our verse (Psalm 1:6.) The puzzle included colors and patterns as hints so that reading skills were not the only measure of success. We missed CJ and Nicholas this week! Jacob always looks around in opening time to see who is missing and says, "I hope [whoever is missing] comes!"

In our classroom, we played a rather wild game to get out the wiggles. I told the children that today's story was about an ongoing war that had continued the whole time Saul was king. Then I pulled out some "poppers," which are styrofoam pellets that you squeeze between two fingers to pop across the room or at someone. We had an ongoing war for quite some time, just popping these at each other and then retrieving and reusing those popped at us. I think they would have continued this all night if I had let them.

After a suitable amount of time, we sat down and I layed out 5 little stones and asked if anyone thought that stones were very important. Most said no, but I think it was Patrick who said, "Yes, because God made them." I liked that! Then I told them that Patrick was right -- everything God makes is important -- but that most of the time we don't think too much about stones, we don't even notice them. But today's Bible story was about a time when a stone was very important.

Then I told them the story of the Israelite and Philistine armies facing off, and the giant Goliath taunting the people of God. The Israelites, intimidated by his size, did nothing. The Lord raised up an unlikely deliverer in the young boy David to exalt His name and protect His reputation and His people. God is all-powerful -- and displays that power by using even the weak and lowly to bring about His will.

When I got to the part about the stone hitting Goliath in the forehead, SarahClaire pointed to her forehead and crossed her eyes. Hilarious! I gave each of the children one of the stones to take home to remind them that our all-powerful God often uses people and things overlooked by the world to accomplish His will. In God's economy, there are no small jobs and no unimportant people.

We also talked about how David reminds us of Jesus, who delivered His people and exalted God's name, by defeating sin on the cross.

Then we moved to the table to work on our books on the Attributes of God. We colored a picture that showed David faraway, and Goliath up close, which made the difference in size even more noticeable, and the teeny tiny stone in the middle of the two figures. Our attribute was: All=powerful. Everyone colored their stones, too.

Then we played a game similar to musical chairs, while reviewing verses on our new CD. The time was over way too soon!