Only God Can Fix Sin

     This week, I dropped my phone. On the pavement. Face down. Yes, it is irrevocably shattered.  I'll have to admit that I cried a little bit. The small loss tapped into a whole wellspring of emotion, regret and sorrow over mistakes that can't be undone.  The Lord was ready to turn all of that emotion in the correct direction with this week's lesson: The Promise and the Curse.  Our story was about The Fall, how the world and Man became broken, and about God's solution through His promised son Jesus Christ -- the Gospel message! The point that we emphasized was a simple one that we repeated several times: Only God can fix sin. (And, wonder of wonders, He does!)
     In our Opening Time, we enjoyed our purposeful free play. One of the activities included colored construction paper, which we ripped up so that it looked like worthless trash. Then we glued the pieces on a page to form beautiful mosaic pictures. I asked Juliana if she had ever broken something that made her sad. She told me about her monkey, whose arm had fallen off and been restored by her Daddy. Good Daddies are great pictures of the Father!
     One of the joys of this new room is that Danielle and I have the space to spread out a few toys and activities, then interact with the children one-on-one as they play and move from activity to activity. I was so encouraged during this time when Bethany repeated back to me one of the key points from last week's lesson. I was joking with her by trying to pick a plastic mushroom off of a plastic piece of pizza, pretending I thought I could really do it. She said, "God could get it off." Then she added with a flourish, "He could just SPEAK, and it would come off." His Truth is in her!
     To introduce our Bible Time, we did an activity similar to our construction paper project, this time using pieces of glass craft mosaic. I showed the children a colorful teapot, then told them that if we dropped it, it would shatter into many pieces -- it would look just like the broken-up mosaic glass, which I then dumped out on the table all at once. I said that we would feel sad and we wouldn't be able to fix something that was so very broken. Brodie looked very serious and said, "Only God could fix it." Yay, for Brodie! Not only could God fix it, but He could make something even more beautiful out of this mess. So we tried our hand at making something beautiful out of the mess. I pulled out a clay dish with putty in the bottom and asked each child to press two of the glass pieces into the bottom. As we worked, Danielle engaged the children with comments and helped them to be polite and attentive as their friends took turns.When we had gone around the circle, they agreed that it was beautiful (but Abby noted that it needed a lot more mosaic pieces to be really beautiful!) Beauty takes time, which we didn't have, so on we went. I told the children that in our Bible story we would see how God fixed something that was very badly broken, and made something even more beautiful.
     These children are doing extremely well with listening during Bible Time. Our goal is to train them to sit and attend to the Word, which is what they will be doing in church all of their lives if they are to grow in their faith.  I told them the story of the Garden of Eden, the forbidden fruit, the deceit of Satan coming to Eve as a serpent, the foolishness of listening to Him, and the unhappiness that always follows disobedience to God. We emphasized that God's rules are always best because He knows what is best for the people that He designed and made. He knows better than we do what is best for us.  They learned the consequences of Adam and Eve's disobedience:  they would know pain and death for the first time, they would have to leave the Garden and all men after them would be rule-breakers just like them.  But God never stopped loving them and  He promised that one day He would send a Savior to destroy Satan and reverse the curse -- that man is Jesus! I ended the story with a Gospel presentation and included Jesus' promised second coming, when He will redeem all Creation in glory beyond compare!
     Following the story, we did a Question Time, using pictures summarizing the action. The children had to put these in the proper order and answer questions as they did so. I was pleased with the amount they had retained. We did get to talk a bit about Satan, clearing up some understandable confusion. One child wondered if Satan was not real anymore. I explained that even today he is a very real enemy to God's people and wants to lie to believers and destroy them.  But I assured them all that God is much stronger than Satan, and Satan and his demons can only do as much as God allows them to do. ("A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" would be a good song to sing with your children to tie into this lesson.) Another child thought (again, quite understandably) that obeying was how we are forgiven and saved from judgment. I affirmed her for understanding that obedience is important but explained that believing in the Promise is how we are forgiven, trusting that Jesus has indeed paid our penalty on the cross and given us His righteousness. Obedience that flows from believing the Promise pleases God and shows that we are His. But believing has to come first. We will repeat this over and over, I'm sure.
     To teach our Bible Verse, "No man can serve two masters." (Matthew 6:24), Brodie and I tugged at different ends of a rope to show how a man pulled in two opposite directions will just be torn back and forth, unable to do anything. Then we played a game with paper bags, some containing plastic snakes, some empty.  Children chose a bag and if it had Satan (a snake) in it, trying to lie to us and tempt us to disobey God, we were to sing Matthew 6:24.  When a child picked an empty bag, we rejoiced and sang Genesis 1:1 ("In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, Genesis 1:1; it was GOOD!")This was a fun time, and I do think they've nearly mastered these first two verses already. A good application to add at home would be to ask what kind of things Satan might tempt us to do, such as disobeying our parents or telling a lie.
       To conclude the evening, we worked on our coloring sheets, putting stickers of fruit in the tree and talking as we worked. May God bless you this week as you do His good work in your homes!