A great object lesson for your kid's time...
This is a series of ideas based around Micah 6:8 "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."
But is this possible? Can one walk humbly with God, or do these two things clash?
What do you need:
- a large glass bottle with a lid
- water
- oil
- edible food dye
- washing up liquid
- dirty plates
- a rubbish bin
Setting:
Children's Sunday School, children's ministry, kid's time, children's moment in church, Messy church, school assemblies, RE lessons, youth work, teenagers, preaching illustration, creative preaching, small churches
Acitivity:
To ‘walk with God’ speaks of intimacy, friendship, knowing and being known.
Action: Pour some red water (water with a few drops of red food colouring) into a large glass bottle.
Humility speaks of honour and respect and knowing what your position is in the relationship.
Action: Pour some oil onto the red water in the bottle.
To walk humbly with God therefore suggests a reverent friendship with God. Not a reverence from a safe distance (‘You are very far away, and I honour you at a safe distance’) so that it becomes far removed from us. Also not an over-familiarity (‘Oh, God and I are best friends’). No, it’s the combination of friendship and reverence woven together.
Friendship and reverence woven together. Is that possible?
Action: Screw the lid on the bottle and shake it well. To start with it will seem as if the oil and water are mixed together, but if you wait a bit, you’ll see that they separate out again.
Looking at the bottle it would seem that the two things don’t go together at all – walking humbly with God – both in friendship and with reverence. Are we missing something? Perhaps we’re not reading the text properly. Let’s look it up – it’s in Micah 6:8
‘He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?’ English standard version.
Hey, that’s interesting! God wants us to walk with him humbly as His friend. He also wants us to seek justice for others and love kindness, being faithful to Him, to others and to ourselves.
So we’re missing an ingredient in the bottle...