When my oldest daughter was a toddler I started to feel the gentle tug to start serving at church. The gentle tug came in the form of church members announcing “if you have children in the nursery and children’s area, it is the 11th commandment to volunteer”.
It’s amazing how the Holy Spirit sends gentle tugs….or threats.
At the time my daughter was four years old. But I noticed the church needed help with the 4th grade Sunday School, four year old class as well as others. Being like Jesus, when it was said he could do nothing in his own hometown…I felt I could do nothing with my own child and decided to volunteer with an older group. I could see her just wanting to sit in my lap the entire time and not participate like a good Christian toddler should.
When the church bulletin came out with the volunteer assignments my name was listed beside the 4 year old Sunday School class. This was obviously a mistake. I wasn’t sure if the Holy Spirit had jokes or if it was a typo. Nonetheless I complained to church management but they were not letting me off the hook.
I was stuck like Chuck. With my daughter and her rowdy crew of four year old friends. How hard could this be? I immediately starting counting the days until it was over.
Before my teaching tenure started, I was given a large bag with all kinds of Biblical supplies. There were coloring sheets of an Ark and all of the animals so we started there. How hard could this be? The first lesson I taught was about Moses and the Ark.
When I announced to my rowdy kiddos the name of our lesson. They all laughed. It was going to be a great year, they were already in a jovial mood. Score one for the unintended Sunday School teacher. The more we talked about Moses, they would laugh louder and louder. Then they started whispering to each other. More and more it was feeling like they were making fun of me. After I had enough of the their blatant disrespect I asked what was so funny.
One of the sweet children, not my own, sheepishly said, “Mrs. Reba! Moses wasn’t on the Ark, it was Noah!.”
I’m not sure how many shades of red my face turned while they were falling out of their chairs laughing. The loudest laugh was coming from my own rowdy four year old. Looking back, it wasn’t that I was not aware of who built the ark and gathered two of every creature. Clearly the whole world knows it was Noah, and he sailed with his family and a zoo for forty days. It was the mere fact that I wasn’t taking my assignment for the Lord more serious. I didn’t take time to prepare proper lessons for the inquisitive and extremely intelligent four year old Sunday School class.
I am not certain that the children learned any new material that year but I certainly learned a boatload of lessons (no pun intended). I learned that when the Lord gives you an assignment he expects you to be prepared, he doesn’t really care for murmuring and complaining. He will not let you move on until all lessons have been learned. He wants his work turned in complete, not half witted. He doesn’t really let you ask questions about the assignment. He will provide wisdom as needed. He will even stick you with four year olds who are wiser than you and will laugh in your face.
If anyone ever tells you that serving the Lord is boring…. send them to me. I have stories to tell about his goodness, mercy and kindness.
“Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise.” – 1 Corinthians 3:18
