Lessons from Children

This morning I was driving in my car with Noah and Grace in tow behind me. We were driving from the house to the church. Today was going to be a special day! We were going to play at the church for the morning. We brought their bikes and we were going to play! It was going to be fun. We all willingly put our coats and shoes on, and we headed to the car with excitement on our faces. ALL OF US! So, we get in the car and something magical happened. We were descending the hill on West Street passing by Doyle Elementary school and I noticed what was happening in the back seat behind me. We were having a little school lesson.

This is the conversation I heard.

Noah- “Grace. Say tree.”

Grace- “Twee”

Noah- “Good job Grace. Say car.”

Grace- “Kar”

Noah- “Good job Grace. Say Baby Doughnut.” {In our family munchkins are known lovingly as Baby doughnuts…}

Grace- “Bebe Dowgnuts”

All of a sudden it hit me… Shouldn’t this be what the Christian life is all about? Shouldn’t we be helping each other grow in our faith? Shouldn’t we be there living life along side of each other helping our peers out when they are struggling? In this situation, there was no paid teacher, there was no professional. Believe me, Noah has lightyears to go in his sentence structure and word pronunciation. However, for whatever reason, he saw a need in his sisters life. He stepped up to the plate and was there to help Grace develop in her speech, and her abilities to communicate. I was one proud dad.

This is what we are trying to do at Youth Group. We are purposefully leaving 10 minutes at the end of every evening for students to spend that time with each other, praying, talking, counseling, laughing, and crying. This has everything to do with helping each other.

I’m a pastor. True statement. However, I don’t want to be the only one leading students. I want to see youth leaders leading students. I want to see students leading students. There will be much greater growth in church’s, youth groups, small groups, and sunday schools if we would work together and follow the example of a 3 year old. What if… What if we practiced this?

What do you think? Can you be apart of this type of a movement? Who do you think that you can be reaching out to? Or, have you had anyone do this in your life?

What do you think?

~Peter

When you sit still, assuming you do sit still, what does God say to you? What are the heartstrings that are being tugged on and pulled at by God?

Yesterday was Monday. AH!!! Glorious monday. Let me tell you… Monday’s are great. See, I know that I am probably the only person alive in the world who enjoys mondays. Monday is my day off. Yesterday we filled it with family fun! We used our membership to the zoo, and went and spent several hours meandering around the Philadelphia Zoo. This was great fun. I have some funny video that I took which I will post up here later. Make sure you come back and check that out. So, Noah was waving to the monkeys, saying, “Hi monkeys… See my cool hat? See my cool hat?” Then we went into the reptile room and noah was running from display to display looking at all the animals… loving each one… “WOW!!! Oh WOW!!!” We went to one particular display and it was for some snake… I hardly paid attention to what kind it was, but that’s not the point. THe point is I was trying to point out to Noah the different animals and show him how God created each one differently. So, we pull up to this display and it is probably no bigger than 2 feet by 4 and 5 feet tall. It simply had stone in it… There was not many places for this baby to hide. So, when we didn’t see the snake in the display I thought for sure it wasn’t there.

I was trying to rush Noah along in order to see more, and get more in during our short stay at the zoo. I quickly scanned the tank and realized there was nothing to see here, so… let’s move along. As I’m trying to coerce Noah to move to the next spot, He says, “Daddy No! He’s here.” “Look, here… under the rock.” Sure enough, when I got down on my knees and adjusted myself to the right posture, I could see the snake that we had come to see. Noah was in the right position and was not in a rush. He found what he came for.

I know this is more of this. However, I can’t quite it. I can’t stop thinking about this. What do you hear from God? What is God showing you? Let me rephrase that question. What is God trying to show you? See some of us need to change our posture. We need to change our position. We need to take our feet out of the starting blocks, set aside the track spikes for a pair of slippers, or sandals. Put those hiking boots on and slow down.

I think it’s time to get back on our knees and be quiet before the God of the universe. To be still and go to a lonely place, just to be. Just to hear from God. Take time today to savor the precious love of Jesus.

~Peter

Lets do this together

Whispers of God