We picked up the pace in Week 4, going over Numbers<\/b> and Deuteronomy<\/b> together. We walked through key stories in Numbers–God’s provision of manna and quail, the 12 spies spying out the promised land, Korah’s rebellion, the waters of Meribah, and the serpent in the wilderness. <\/p>\n
In every story, we learned the same truths. The people forgot<\/i> what God had done in providing them food or protection or leadership. The people complained<\/i> about the circumstances God had brought them into. The people were punished<\/i> for their complaining.<\/p>\n
In Deuteronomy, we were reminded through Moses’ words to do the opposite. Moses told the people to remember<\/i> what God had done and said. He told them to be thankful and to obey<\/i> God. And he promised them that when they remembered and were obedient, God would bless<\/i> them.<\/p>\n
For the first time, I added my own activity sheet to the mix. I still used the “Fuel up” worksheet, but now I had a handout with the words “Thank you, God, for ________________” below a blank box. I instructed the kids to practice thankfulness at once by drawing a picture and filling in the blank with what they were thankful to God for.<\/p>\n
The next week, in Joshua<\/b>, we contrasted the battle of Jericho with the battle of Ai. We marched around our classroom six times silently and another seven times shaking homemade rattles (old pill bottles filled with a variety of noisy beans\/bells\/rice\/pebbles\/craft supplies). We tried out darnedest to make even our classroom tables fall down, but we concluded that God’s plan was humanly impossible. Marching around silently and then loudly does not<\/i> defeat cities–especially not super-strong ones like Jericho.<\/p>\n
Yet when the people obeyed, following God’s plan, they succeeded in destroying Jericho.<\/p>\n
Contrast this with Ai, where the people are sure that they can win. Ai was in such bad shape that the Israelites wouldn’t even need all their warriors to defeat them. This was easy-peasy.<\/p>\n
But Achan was disobedient–and the battle they should have (humanly) won with plenty to spare ended up as a crushing defeat.<\/p>\n
We discovered that when we are obedient, God works to do impossible things. We discovered that when we are disobedient, God allows our defeat–even when we’ve got “everything going for us.”<\/p>\n
In Judges<\/b>, we found Numbers all over again, only with a twist. <\/p>\n
Joshua died and there was no leader to take his place. Everyone did what they thought was right. They forgot God, they worshiped other gods, they did evil in God’s sight. God delivered them into the hands of their enemies. They cried to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer (a judge). The judge dies and there is no leader to take his place. Everyone does…<\/p>\n
The cycle goes on and on and on.<\/p>\n
I was still trying to follow the “Fuel up” worksheets, but was getting frustrated with how they emphasized what I felt were tangential details.<\/p>\n
“Stick to the point”, I felt like telling the author (who, of course, I have no contact with).<\/p>\n
To be continued…<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We picked up the pace in Week 4, going over Numbers and Deuteronomy together. We walked through key stories in Numbers–God’s provision of manna and quail, the 12 spies spying out the promised land, Korah’s rebellion, the waters of Meribah, and the serpent in the wilderness. In every story, we learned the same truths. The … Read more Sunday School in Review: Part 2<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9517"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}