You can’t teach your students anything if you don’t have their attention. Younger children are especially oriented to visual stimuli. Your job is to create a visual or interactive activity that explains an idea of a Bible concept. Last month I suggested the bruised apple as a visual for the concept of sin. What about a visual for God’s love? This abiding love is part of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and is essential to an understanding of salvation. To help students understand the depth of this love, I suggest a symbol. A symbol is a concrete example of an abstract idea.
In preparation for such a lesson, gather pictures of some of your students and their parents. Post the pictures on your bulletin board. As the students watch, place their picture with another set of parents. Ask the children if they would be willing to be the child of a different set of parents. Ask the reverse: would those parents want to trade their children for a different set? Ask the children why they don’t want to switch. Wouldn’t we be unhappy and miss our family if we switched parents? Does that longing ever change?Older students might realize that over time, that longing might wane and this is a good comparison to those Christians who forsake God’s way. The yearning to be in God’s will can be lost if we are away too long.
The answers to most of these questions will, of course, be that neither will the children want different parents nor will the parents want different children. This bond of love is representative of God’s love. We are His children and He is our Father. Even when we are not perfect, He loves us and does not trade us! He tries to help us, to encourage us, to show us the right way to live, just as our earthly parents do. God isn’t going to give us up, nor will we be happy if we give Him up!