Bible Stories, Paper folding, and Paper cutting

Just got back from a very small storytelling festival. Megan Hicks shared her stories for children with origami which made me think of you! Maybe you already tell stories this way.

So here are two sources. Adjust as needed. Use your own skills and creativity.You may need to practice in front of a mirror.  Enjoy!

Bible Stories + Origami with  Christine Petrell Kallevig

Snip and Tell Bible Stories  with Karyn Henley

If  you've already tried activities like these, how did it go?

Taking an idea back to the scriptures

A couple of articles I've read recently, written for parents but for teachers, too. These aren't specifically Christian but worth reading. Consider an approach like this...

"Collaborating with a 4-year old"  about parenting and art.

Can  you find stories in scripture where parents and children collaborated in childhood? As adults?  How about stories of God collaborating with Man? (Talk about a difference in skill and maturity!) Find the stories or the verses in context.

Don't tell kids how smart they are! 

Compliment their work, their effort, their ability to collaborate, their ability to find a solution for the problem. .. but is that what scripture says? Did you ever look?

Did God compliment His Son? Does God compliment Man? Find the stories or the verses in context. Did He? How much? When? To whom? What did God say?

How can you apply what you discover to your interaction with children?

Did you ever find that you really identify with a particular Bible character? How about the kids in your class?

When you read a Bible story, are there ways to help kids identify with the characters in the story?

"How do you think ____ felt? Did you ever feel like that?"

"Did you ever do something like that? Do you know someone who did?" Not just the major characters but the other characters in the stories, too.

I know of someone who makes me think of Esther . . .

I know someone who makes me think of Jonah...

I know someone who makes me think of Noah's mother...

How about you?

Think of specific people or situations in scripture where there is a teacher and a learner.

Lay aside your preconceived ideas and make observations. What do you notice about the teacher? What do you notice about the learner?

Are there similarities? Differences?

Who learned what? Did anyone change? How? Make your observations.

I discovered a book, written about 10 years ago, that you may have already seen. It was written for writers, storytellers, and other professionals working with people who may have difficult stories to tell. It's called INVITING THE WOLF IN by Loren Niemi and Elizabeth Ellis. Worth the read.

Interesting to think about how the scriptures tell difficult stories. I don't think of them as difficult stories but in many cases if the original story was my story (and it wasn't scripture), I might think differently...

Thinking about older elementary and junior high children:  We read the Old Testament in the context of a Savior but when the OT was written, Jesus hadn't come yet.

Are there creation themes in Old Testament stories that we miss because we read it through a New Testament window? Does it matter?

Does our scientific thinking keep us from really reflecting on God as relational Creator when we read the Old Testament stories?

How do your respond to unscientific child-like faith?

What do the Old Testament stories tell us about the Maker of Heaven and Earth and His creative power? How do the Old Testament stories renew our understanding of a Creator God Who is relational and involved?

How can these reminders better prepare us for the new life He sent us in a Baby who grows into a Man and dies and lives again to reconcile us with that same God who made us to do what He made us to do?

I've also recently re-read Vickie Hearne's book Adam's Task. She was a writer, philosopher, horse & dog trainer. The first time I read her book I found it the most frustrating book ever. All the things I wanted her to keep talking about, she didn't. On the second read I caught the part where she said she did it intentionally.

So God created a world, then he created man and gave him dominion over what he created along with the privilege of naming. Not just the authority but the privilege.

What does it mean when you give something un-named, a name?

Here's an interesting google search, "biblical jumping into the unknown."

Implications for children & faith? Sure! Fear at one end of the spectrum, adventure at the other. Real life & faith. Let's play with it. Let's explore.

So how do I search the scriptures to see what I can find? I wouldn't worry about "jump." Although it might be an interesting search. Jump makes me think of leap and leap makes me think of the stag in the Psalms and Song of Songs and there are probably other images of deer or surefooted creatures in dangerous-to-us places..

Deer aren't the bravest creatures on the planet but they live in the wilderness. You can search "unknown." "Wilderness" is another word I would search for. "Unknown."  "Dark," "Darkness," "Deep darkness." You could keep going with that.

You could also start thinking about stories about people in scripture wandering into the unknown or go back and look at words like "wander," "journey," "lost."

How about stories: Put yourself in the place of the people in the stories. Adam & Eve found themselves in the unknown (to them). God led Abraham & Sarah on a journey. When Noah re-emerged from the ark he didn't know what he was going to find. Rebecca didn't know what she would find at the end of her journey. Moses, Joseph, Caleb, Esther. Daniel. All had experience walking into the unknown-to-them. What other Bible stories can you think of where someone chose or was forced to wander or jump into the unknown... Remember how limited their experience was. They didn't have the global exposure we have today. I'll have to think a little harder to think of someone who JUMPED into the unknown. I know! David. Impulsive, passionate David and his adventure with Goliath. Anybody else you can think of?

You could do this kind of brainstorming with mid-elementary kids and older about most any topic. Makes them think. Ask open ended questions. Make it a game. Gives kids creative thinking tools they can draw on to kindle their faith in real life situations assuming they have a strong foundation of Bible stories up to that point. A good reason to lay deep Bible story foundations...

Who were these people? What did they face? Do I face situations like that? What did God do in that particular story for that particular person in the scriptures? How does it feed my faith in God? What should I remember?  Did God ever meet you in a situation like that? What did He do?

Have fun with this! There are closed questions (the questioner already knows the answers). It's good to have some specific stories in mind in case nobody can think of any. There are open questions (you ask a question and let the kids explore possibilities and implications, new-to-you observations)...be ready!

Maybe you can use this technique with younger kids, too. For younger kids, "Can you think of any Bible story where someone was afraid? Where someone was very brave? Where someone was sad?" Enjoy the journey. See where it takes you. I expect God will meet you and your kids there.

Somebody was looking for a rebus for Psalm 139.

Do you know how to create a rebus?

Pick a story (in this case, from scripture) that uses a few nouns over and over- preferably nouns that can be substituted with a simple drawing or clip art image. If you simplify the language for early readers (assuming the story lends itself to that without sacrificing the Word), it's fun or at least it's something different.

If you're telling the story, use the pictures as story cards. Hold up a sheep picture for "sheep" but don't say the word. Hold up the picture and let the kids say the word.

Use your imagination and have some fun with it.

This is just for fun. Lent. Easter. 'Tis the season.

This is a site with old pictures from Children's Bibles. Someone came looking for "the teaching boat" which I thought was a neat phrase for the boat Jesus taught from. Here's another page from the same site.

I'm going to post this and then go look for sites for Bible Art.

Take your familiar holidays, read the familiar passages the way a storyteller would, without visuals and props and let the story (God's Word) do it's work. Or read it and then gather images that people have created over the centuries and flip through from the oldest to the newest and see what you see. See how the artist interpreted the story but also see how people's cultural perspectives changed. What stayed the same. What changed? What part of the story did they focus on?

Toddlers & movement

Thought about you guys while I was sitting in a waiting room last night watching toddlers with their relatively short attention spans, leaning to use language and social skills (talking to a friendly stranger in long sentences but I couldn't understand the little guy - something about a truck out the window), moving moving moving. Walking, running, climbing.

Which says incorporate as much gross motor into your lessons as you can. Ok. An example? Like walking around Jericho 7 times.  Save all your churches Amazon book boxes and tape them closed which will give you big cheap building  blocks. Build a wall with the kids and tell the Jericho story or sing a song and march around the wall and then make it fall down. I bet you can do that at least 5 times and keep their attention.  Abraham walking, taking a long trip. What will they bring? Put it in a bag. Walk around the room a couple of times. "Oh, I'm so hot!" "I'm tired. Are you tired?" Where will they sleep? Make a tent. Go to sleep. Wake up. Fill the bag. Pick up the tent. More walking. That kind of thing.

Look at this week's Bible story and see if you can tell the story with movement. Lots of movement. Simple movement. Walk. Run, March. Stretch, Make yourself big. Make yourself little.  Fast/Slow, Tip toe,  Stop/Freeze. (You might have to practice that one.) Show them. Do it with them. Make it fun. Use movement in your story telling.

I'm not saying they will intellectually remember and be able to regurgitate what you're teaching them but they will remember the activity and they will remember the fun and they will associate it with church and God and maybe someday it will be another small building block as they grow faith.

Oh...remember...Toddlers aren't the only age group that like to move!

Toddlers & Stories

Let's look at toddlers and Bible stories again. I forgot I'd started this post.

Toddlers are relatively new arrivals on this planet. They are learning about their world through their senses.They are learning about living and non-living things around them. They are still learning words and language to go with these new objects and experiences. To understand a story requires an understanding of language.

When you interact with a toddler, they understand more language than the language they use. A toddler can get the doll for you before they can say, "doll." Their language skills and attention span are limited. They have vocabulary based on development and experience. They may have experiential memories and associations that they don't have words for. Using pictures, and picture books expands their vocabulary. It may give them opportunity to generalize a sensory association to a picture. At this age you are giving children words for things they see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. When you tell a story to a toddler focus on using pictures and sounds and taste and touch. When you do, attach a word.

If you're telling the story of Noah's ark, use a picture or stuffed animals. Name as many things in the picture as you can. Bring a pan of water with a boat. Name ark or boat, water.

Reading and storytelling as a time when a child or small group of children can enjoy your focused attention and snuggle in your lap or sit close gives story a positive association. Turning pages is probably a little like hide & seek.  Maybe they will associate the word cat or the cat on Noah's ark with the furry creature at grandmas.

Naaman. Most toddlers know about being sick, getting washed or taking a bath or maybe going swimming.
The surprise element is fun for young children (if you don't scare them). Naman goes under dirty and pops up clean. Use your creativity. (2 dolls or puppets)

Communion. Toddlers have tasted bread, drink and (hopefully) sitting around a table with loved ones.

Because toddlers are learning words, vocabulary, language, use a big picture that tells a story. Don't make it too busy but point out and name the different things in the picture. Use sound and touch and smell. Point to things: Who's that? What's that? Use a of tape sounds. What's that sound?

Most of a toddler's vocabulary involves nouns. Concrete objects and actions. Pick a toddler. Any toddler. What words do they know? Use the word "Jesus", the word "God" as much as you want, not because it's concrete but I'd put it in the category of  learning "Mommy loves you" for a toddler.

I was talking with a professional storyteller the other day. She said that most storytellers can tailor their stories for audiences 3 and up. I asked her about pictures with toddlers but she doesn't use props and pictures for her tellings. So that level of storytelling is beyond a toddler - a church sermon.


Pray with toddlers when you tell a Bible story. Think about family or church rituals and patterns of action that send messages to little children. Praying before you eat, asking God's blessing, prayers at night before bed. Advent candles, a creche scene, advent candles and calendars, regularly pulling down that special Bible book to read or tell a story with your toddler nestled in your lap.  I think our calling on God, and actions repeated over and over in the lives of toddlers (like prayer) sends a message to toddlers. If you bow your head and pray at every meal. Your toddler will come to expect that and even initiate it. That kind of thing.

Finger plays (though their small motor coordination is still relatively undeveloped), action rhymes (the sounds and actions are upbeat & fun) and simple songs are other ways to tell stories to toddlers. I still remember being little in Sunday School and trying to do "Here's the church, Here's the steeple, Open the doors, See all the people." I remember the pictures in one of the story books and I'm pushing 60.

Noah's ark: Make a boat in the middle of the room (a sheet, chairs, cardboard). Leave stuffed animals all over the room before the kids come in. Pretend to find and bring all the animals into the boat. Eat, sleep. Then take all the animals off the boat and find them homes. How about that!  Ok. Herding toddlers is alot like herding cats but try it. You never know. Maybe use a box instead of a sheet. One big enough for everyone to get in. No, not in the water...Send parents to places where there are lots of animal sounds and listen to sounds. (a farm, an animal shelter, a zoo, the woods) Name the sounds!

Doing is how toddlers learn. It gives them opportunity to use their senses and to learn names. Those experiences will give story more meaning as their language skills grow.

"...stories in the scriptures about temptation. . ."

Stories where God told someone to do something and they didn't or where God told someone not to do something and they did would count as stories about giving in to temptation.

Choosing to do (or not to do) what God told them, even when it was hard, would be a story about resisting temptation:

Here are a few of those stories:

Adam & Eve
Cain & Abel
Joseph & the guy's  wife (I've forgotten his name)
The Golden Calf
(Maybe) Lot
Lot's wife
Samson
David & Bathsheba
Daniel
Jesus and Satan
Jesus in the Garden
Peter

See if you can think of more...not what you would call "sin" by our traditional religious church standards...look at "God said do..." and someone didn't or "God said don't..." and someone did. Or they were tempted to disobey God but they didn't.  Maybe they made a choice to honor God and do something that was very hard. Job's wife wanted him to deny God. Daniel chose not to eat the rich food offered at the king's table. You could probably count breaking one of the 10 commandments if you look at the stories that took place after God gave the commandments to Moses. See what you can find...

You could also do a word study. If you use "tempt," I think "tempted" and "temptation" will show up too.

I'm guessing you'll see things you didn't see before.

Lots to ponder at the Cory Center website.

But let's take it a step farther. Here's a challenge for you...

Did you ever search the scriptures for stories or passages about people who got mad at God? Who were they? Why were they mad at God? Did God respond? If so, how?

Did you ever search the scriptures for stories about people who were grieving? Can you think of stories or passages in the scriptures about people who were very very sad? Why were they sad? What happened? Did God respond? If so, how?

Today we have sports. Are there sports in the scriptures? If so, what? If not, what did people do to stay "fit"? What was fitness all about? How did they balance and fill up their lives? What would a typical day or week or year look like?

Not looking for right or wrong answers here. Looking for observations. Read and search God's stories for the obvious, not for some deep dark secret. Use your eyes and ears, your mind and your heart. See what God will show you...Do it with your church leadership. Do it with grown-ups or parents. Do it with teens. Do it with children.  See what God will show you...

Here's the readings from this week's lectionery

...Looking for kids...

Isaiah 7:10-16 We think about the miracle of the virgin birth, the promise of God fullfilled. I think about an unwed teen mother and the range of emotion she must have experienced. Mary called her son Immanuel "God with us."

At what age are kids old enough to refuse evil and choose good?An interesting point of reference... Is it cultural?

Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
How long will you be angry O Lord? Let your face shine. I don't really think about God that way, the God with the shining face. What does that look like to kids? People with shining faces? What makes somebody's face shine? Do you have kids who know about eating the bread and drinking the drink of tears? How about laughing enemies? Here is a picture of God: the Good Shepherd enthroned on cherubim shining forth. People calling to their shepherd, "Stir up your might! Come and save us! Make your face shine on us." A call to the Shepherd, not the soldier...never noticed that before.

Romans 1:1-7 The season of advent is full of Old Testament prophecy. The Christmas story, the Easter Story- full of Old Testament prophecy. What is prophecy? Have you or your kids ever watched God bring His Word to pass? What was that like? What was it like for people around Jesus? The passage starts about Paul & prophecy. It ends up being about Jesus.

Matthew 1:18-25 Here is more of Mary's story and that of a very gracious man, apparently sensitive to the spirit of God as Mary was. It seems God sovereignly chose them. Imagine. Mary & Joseph believed God. How did they know it was Him? I don't know. We all assume they just knew. If I remember right the scriptures say that every word of the Lord - if it is the Word of the Lord -comes to pass...a season of odd happenings, prophecy fullfilled, answered prayer & God's face shining.

Pondering lectionary passages

So I pulled some scriptures out of the lectionary and posted them below only because those particular verses jumped out at me for whatever reason or I saw something I hadn't noticed before...

If you use the lectionary in your church or want the fun of using it for devotions. . . This is The Revised Common Lectionary at the Vanderbilt Divinity Library. You'll see the year and the link on the left when you click.

Go looking for kids. You can use Bible stories that tie to the season. You can look for children in the text (reading it in context) or ask where were they? How did these words affect their parents, them, their community?  Look for promises to multi-generations. Look for imagery that is particularly appealing to kids or imagery that children can relate to. If children can't relate to the imagery and the ideas are age appropriate, (branches growing from a stump for instance) what can you do to add that experience to your kids so they have a point of reference? Do you see the passages about peace and being teachable? Don't you love the imagery of beating swords into plows and farm tools? Do you know a soldier turned farmer? A tree specialist? Do you know a metal worker?

I'm not talking long and complicated. Think snapshots in a big album, depending on the ages of your kids. Sure it's good to know the family and the stories and back stories that go with the snap shots but as kids grow you share a little more and a little more. And some day the whole picture of their Loved One makes sense.

Enjoy the season!

Toddlers Again...

I need to seriously revise something in this post. In case anyone misunderstood, it wasn't my intention to reference the devil tempting Jesus in the wilderness following Jesus' baptism as a story about baptism for toddlers. My intention was to reference the part about the Spirit descending on Jesus like a dove. Even that may be realistically out of the reach of toddlers. Watching a baptism in church. That's concrete. Water is concrete. Being in the water, going under and coming back up is concrete. The Holy Spirit healing you when you're sick is concrete. You could tell the story using a paper dove with wings that flap or tell a simplified version of the baptism story with puppets or dolls. You might even be able to come up with a finger play if there isn't one already. Remember that each story or church activity is an opportunity to introduce new vocabulary (words) to toddlers & preschoolers especially if you have older toddlers who can talk: Jesus, water, baptism, dove. The Holy Spirit isn't neccessarily concrete to toddlers & preschoolers. The devil isn't concrete. Which brings us to why I even went back to that post.

Someone searched "explaining devil to toddlers". The works of God are concrete. The works of the Holy Spirit (healing) is concrete but I don't know that toddlers make that association. The dove is a concrete God- given symbol for the Holy Spirit. Do you see a God-given concrete symbol for the devil? The serpent? Good angels, bad angels, maybe but I still think even that may be confusing or completely off the radar for a toddler.

I would rather spend the first 6 years of a child's life teaching them to be responsible and accountable for their own actions and about making choices, making good choices. "Keeping the commandments," if you will.

Love God. What do we do that says we love God? What does that look like to a toddler or preschooler?
Love your neighbor as yourself. What do we do to love our neighbor as ourself. What does that look like to a toddler or preschooler? Go through all 10 commandments. Make them toddler/preschool simple and ask yourself what does doing this right look like to a toddler or preschooler?

Have no other gods before Me.

Don't make an image or bow down and worship anything in heaven, on earth, or in the waters below.

Don't misuse God's name.

Remember the Sabbath & keep it holy. Six days we work. On the 7th day we rest from our work.

“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you." (My kids used to hear that a lot for the promise attached.)

Don't murder.

Don't take someone else's husband or wife.

Don't take anything that isn't yours.

Don't lie about someone.

Don't want something that belongs to your neighbor, (to your friend).

Those are the 10 rules God gave his people. Jesus summed them up into two.  Take responsibility for your actions.

Search the scriptures for references to the devil. Look for the stories attached. Who were those stories for? Is there a God-given biblical picture or image attached?  Did it strike fear into the hearts of men? Children?

My mother-in-law was an art teacher. She loved kids. She was also very involved in her Episcopal church. She'd grown up Russian orthodox so she was familiar with iconography. Much of her artwork for her church was simple, clear, clean line & color. When she died we found ourselves with a library of art books, among them a book of art depicting the life of Christ. Another was a book full of artistic and cultural renditions of the devil. I'm only bringing this up because children need concrete association and we often draw on visual images but they aren't all biblical. So before you go scaring little children needlessly, go back to scripture. Scripture talks about a healthy fear of the Lord. It also talks about cowardice not getting us into the kingdom of heaven.

Someday, if I understand scripture correctly, we will all face our Maker and give account. For Christ's sake and for the sake of the children in your care, prayrefully ponder and search the scriptures before you conjure up scary images that will be hard for kids to put aside when they grow up and into greater understanding. Consider what's age appropriate. Consider those words and understanding that are concrete for the very young. What's in the scriptures for them? Look before you leap. Go search the scriptures like the Bereans and "see if these things be so."

Christmas is a wonderful time to pull very young children into the scriptures. A mom & dad, a Baby, animals, angels, kings, a donkey, camels, sheep, shepherds, stars, songs, treasure, smells, things to touch...keep going!

Pondering Psalm 78. A long Psalm. The focus is on God and all that He's done, all that we have to praise Him for - but there are also references to children and future generations worth pondering. The American Standard version has cross-references, if you're interested.

. . . an odd movie, perhaps, to post about . . .

Blogger ate random part of my last try. Let's try again...

Someone is bound to be upset about my posting this but there was a conversation about violence earlier. Last night we watched the The Secret of Kells. Apparently it found a wider audience in Europe than here, understandably so. Some Americans look for God's divine direction and intervention in our history. Many other cultures can do that as well. I would use this movie more to stimulate discussion and conversation than for use as a teaching tool but understand that the Book of Kells contains the four gospels, hand-written during the dark ages with extravagantly illuminated (illustrated) handwork combining the best of Irish handwork and iconography.

I found it rather fascinating from an artistic point of view. It is also an interesting interpretation of events.

Do your research first. I'd read "How the Irish Saved Civilization," one of my favorite books, maybe because I learned alot about the church that I'd never heard before. I also played with drawing Celtic knot patterns for a while after we celebrated St.Pat's Day at Artisan a few years back, looking for activities for the kids. As with any creative endeavor they tend to take on a life of their own. It would probably also help to know the legends of Kells & Iona and the saints featured in the story and the background on the fairy which I didn't read ahead. Try picture books from your local library.

You can look at it as a story about the Christian and Pagan cultures of one people/one place joining forces to face an enemy from the outside but there are many many layers. The main character is a child. The adults in the story, the child, the fairy, the community, all have their own individual battles to win. There's also the intergenerational differences about what's important. If you focus your children on unconditional obediance don't waste your time watching this although Brendan's gentle "no" is obviously for a higher cause. The Irish monks were known for being softer than those from the Roman church which comes across in their voices and dialogue but not neccessarily the face of the abbot. All in all, a fascinating movie about faith and culture, internal and external foes, generational differences, fear, literacy, nature, art and spirit . . . lots, lots, lots! Though the movie doesn't focus on this, if you do your research, you can focus your audience on what God did.

*if my link to the movie doesn't work it's easy to find.

Wrestling with Cultural Shifts 2

Who would ever have dreamed that a culture would discredit God's word for the violence there? It's always been there. The Old Testament is full of slaughter and often at God's own hands and generations of children sat around the fire listening to war stories, stories about heroes and victories won. We use our imaginations and (depending on our experiences) we controll the intensity of the image we create when we listen, when we read. If we watch TV and movies, those who produce the show create those images for us.


Fortunately, war isn't all we find in the scriptures. Was God just responding to a culture in ways that particular culture could understand? Are we really such a kind, gentle, peace-loving people who have no point of reference for such things? God knew there would be generations who would respond like this. And if we were truly a kind gentle peace-loving people. Would God use different images to teach us or respond differently?

We're uncomfortable with scripture that seems to contradict our cultural sensitivities. We're uncomfortable with scripture that seems to contradict itself, let alone talking about these things with our children. We're afraid. Afraid of being right. Afraid of being wrong. Afraid of misrepresenting God, afraid that scripture will leave our kids unequipped to face the real world. But scripture was set in the real world - a violent world. We're a cowardly fearful people. But we can't be or we won't inherit the kingdom of God. God didn't hesitate to wage war but God is Love. We're forced to wrestle with that.

The church accuses the world of violence, inappropriate sexual excess, materialism, consumerism....etc etc. The world looks at us and sees the same stuff... What do we do with this? We don't live to please people but to please God. But Christians, even Bible-believing Christians, disagree among ourselves. But the questions and issues we wrestle with really aren't new because "there is nothing new under the sun". How do we handle the scriptures as God's holy Word in a culture that clashes with it, when the lines aren't so clean as they used to be in "Christian-Judeo society". What does reconciliation with God look like in our culture? In any culture? Is it always the same? Man is the same. Jesus is the same. God is the same. His Word is the same. But I bet a soldier knows the Warrior God differently than I do. God the judge, God the shepherd, God the king...a judge, shepherd, king all know different sides of God than I do.

Where is God while these cultural tectonic plates are shifting? Somewhere in that place that doesn't shift and shake. The quake is inevitable, but I'd rather not be standing on a crack. My husband will call it a "paradigm shift"...I'm thinking paradigm quake...How do we walk with our children there? We tell them the stories of scripture and wrestle with them in the context of our world.

We keep coming back to God generation after generation to wrestle with Him and His Word... what matters to God? How do we know? What do we hold on to? What's cultural? Is that just someone's interpretation? Is interpretation even an option? What is the Kingdom that will never be shaken? The two greatest commandments sum up the ten...


I decided to do a quick word search for "violent" (first NIV, then NAS) recalling something in scripture about the Kingdom being taken by violent men... I found it. I don't understand it but I found it. While I was looking for that, I ran over the passage from Acts 2. I should say it ran over me - maybe because I was looking and thinking about expressions of cultural violence (war and killing) and natural disasters and ... gosh...I looked at the word "violent" in the context of Acts 2 and . . . well? The spirit showing up like a violent wind . . . God's Spirit? God! What does that mean?...

I want to think that I fear God...Men, women, and children who experience war or natural disaster - something destructive and totally beyond their control will have very different feelings attached to "violence" or even the "fear of the Lord" than those of us who don't. We are a culture used to being "in control" - not face to face with the earth and it's seasons - day after day dependent on a field for food, hoping for rain when our food plants start to shrivel and the water's running out, hoping for sun when it won't stop raining so the potatoes don't rot. Hoping that grasshoppers won't destroy next season's food as they fly through. Faced with the floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, oil spills, terrorists we're forced to face things we can't control and quite frankly...are you surprised for God to feel compelled to continually remind a generation that has so much control over its environment that we aren't the ones in control?

Jacob was a shrewd deceptive controlling man but he wrestled with God and won. That wrestling to win resulted in a (probably painful) permanent injury. He ended up with a dislocated hip which would have seriously impeded his day to day ability to move for the rest of his life in an agricultural, pastoral, nomadic time. They didn't have wheel chairs or hip replacement. He wrestled with God because he wanted God's blessing. He fought with God. He argued with God if you will. It wasn't enough to have his father's blessing - he wanted God's blessing. It came at a cost and the end result blessed not just a man but a nation, both far from perfect, at that... 

So? Welcome! You've been "birthed" into an imperfect faith-filled group of people who wrestle with God generation after generation and remain faithful to the God of the scriptures despite the contradictions they find everywhere. God is God. Look at the wars of the Old Testament. Did God condone them or was it man being man. And what role did God play? Were they superstitious (non-scientific) to ask these questions? Did Jesus need an anger management seminar when he was throwing things around in the temple? Look at what He said to Peter when Peter took out his sword and cut off someone's ear. If it's in the scriptures, it's there for a reason - all of it, "useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."(2 Tim 3:16-17 NIV) despite the contractions. Because of the contradictions, I'm left to wrestle: how is it all true? Solomon in his wisdom...for everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.

So, how do we prepare and equip our children to make our God their God the way every generation's had to? How do we prepare them to walk faithfully in changing cultures the way every generation's had to? How do we train them to faithfully wrestle with God and all that seems to contradict itself and end up with God's blessing and the ability to bless others . . .

One step at a time . . .I start by giving myself and those around me permission to wrestle with God. Maybe God's people succeeded because they started learning to wrestle as parent and child walking, talking every day when they rose up, when they lay down, when they walked along the way together. Maybe that's the place they learned to wrestle with God's word and life as they knew it age appropriately. Everything in it's time, everything in its season. There was a time and a season for the people of God to await a Messiah, a time and a season for Jesus to come to this earth, a time and a season for subsequent generations to remain until He comes again - a very long season of watching and waiting and wrestling and continuing to work at whatever He's given us to do ... always...until He comes. God help us as we wrestle with Him! God bless you!