What keeps you from God?

I’ve discovered something.  There are some Sunday School lessons that are easy to make hands on for little kids, but it’s hard for older kids.  When I sat down to write out the Parable of the Dinner Guests I immediately thought it’s a perfect lesson to have a doll tea party with.

Can you imagine doing that with 11 year olds?

I can’t either.  So, this sat on my back-burner while I tried to think of a way to apply this to my kids.  Finally it came to me.

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The Parable of the Dinner Guests is about putting wrong things first

I mean I knew that, but it became glaringly obvious as we acted out this skit.  All of the guests had been invited, and they’d said yes, but when it actually came time to show up they had excuses.

“I’m sorry, but I need to take care of my new land.”

And that means you can’t go to a dinner party?

“New cow, you know how it is….”

And again, you can’t spare three hours?

“Pretty wife, brand new, still breaking her in.” (that might be the sarcastic Ticia translation, that isn’t as funny as she thinks it is)

All of these excuses are pretty thin.  I don’t really blame the King/Master for being upset, and rescinding the invitation.  I would too.

Which got me to thinking, what excuses do I use?

I know I’ve got a few, too busy is a common one.  But if I really admit it, it all comes down to, “I don’t want to.”

I know, this parable is originally about Jesus being rejected by the Jews and going to the Gentiles in part, but for me, right at this time, it got me thinking on priorities.

Which leads to my activity

 

What keeps you from God?

Now that summer is cooling down a bit we can do some outside activities, like sidewalk chalk*.  So I grabbed our bucket, and wrote two questions.

What keeps you from God?

What draws you to God?

At first, they gave me generic answers, “Church, the Bible, etc.” (in the interests of privacy of my kids, I am not disclosing their keeps me from God answers)

I challenged them to give me a more specific answer.  “That is a preschool answer.  That’s what a three-year-old answers once they’ve been to church for a while.”

So, they thought some more.

And I got “walking in His creation,” and the discussion got going.

We had a similar conversation about keeping us from God, but you’ll have to ask your kids for their answers (mine usually revolves around not going to bed early, being distracted by projects, etc).

 

Parable of the Dinner Guests resources

Parable of the Dinner Guests storybook
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