Today it fell my task to teach the basics of the book of Job to my 1st - 5th graders. These are my kids who have been sitting in worship for an hour and a half and have just tanked up on donuts.
I have to first tell you who is in my class - I've changed their names to keep you guessing. :)
There is:
Sweetie Pie cute as a bug, can sing like a cherub .
Pete who is smart as a whip but sees himself more as a cowboy than a kid -
There's Slim who knows as much about the latest Superhero video as anybody and can tell you all about him whether you want to hear it or not. . . they know their Bibles -- when they want to give up an answer.
There's Sam -- who would prefer you not ask him questions, but follows carefully as we discuss and read our Bibles - and Phil who gives the most precious grin and tries hard to keep up with a teacher who talks far too fast.
Lastly, there's Will and Joe both tenderhearted to the core and can teach you about God's love with a single hug -- but you'd better keep it moving, lady -- or they're out the door if you don't have a pretty good dog and pony show.
So they bounded in the door, took off for the Junior High room and I wondered how could I keep their focus. I thought the first thing we would do was to have a "boo - boo" contest to see who had the worst scrape or cut and award 5 new bandaids to the kid with the ugliest scar-- surely that would be a good parallel to Job's boils. For a group that usually has skinned knees and banged up elbows everybody was in pretty good shape. . . so that sort of bombed. (Should have brought the camo or super-hero band-aids.)
Then I took them to the trash pit out behind the building and showed them the type of place Job sat scraping his booboos with a broken pot. I even broke an old flower pot to give them the idea of what Job's life became -- nobody offered up their scratches or scrapes to try it out.
I stressed what a blameless and upright man Job was and that he offered sacrfices and worshipped God. Slim thought that would have cut his supply of cows to offer up one for each of his 10 kids every time they gave a big party.
Their biggest questions of the day -- "Was this before Satan was kicked out of Heaven?" - that was Slim.
They get pretty fascinated with Satan's fall -- especially Pete and Slim so they honed in on the conversation between the devil and the angels. They wondered if it was like The Emperor's New Groove where there was an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the next. They were thrilled to know the verse about their own angels. I wonder if they keep some of their's pretty busy.
"Did Job's children go to the bad place (you mean Hell?)- when they died?" -- Joe wanted to know.
Nobody knew for sure what an oxen was. They're weren't sure what it meant to be upright.
No, Job didn't give up and curse God. (though I did hear some bad language in class that I probably should have addressed).
I stressed that Job still worshipped after his first big losses --Joe continued to read the verse that said that Job was naked when he came into the world and naked when he was taken out. ("Naked" made Joe giggle)
In conclusion
They all agreed that Satan was testing Job and that yes remaining faithful was the right thing to do. I suddenly realized that they had gotten pretty quiet and were intent on Joe's reading -- he loves to read. They were working hard on filling in their verses. They liked the part where his brothers and sisters came and gave silver coins and a gold ring. (This was a good place for a ring pop treat.) With blue lips and tongues sucking on their ring pops, they did the math and realized that God blessed Job twice as much for remaining faithful.
How do you teach a child that tests and trials come when we least expect or deserve them? There was no way I could explain the questions Job had for God nor could I help them understand his pain was compounded by the stress of feeling abandoned. They're too young to realize that at times life is not fair and that we just have to accept and believe that God is in charge and HE will bring us through.
When calamity strikes or our lives get disrupted ever wonder, "Who signed me up for that?"
Several of my family members were no strangers to suffering: My Dad with muscular dystrophy, my Mother-in-Law with post-polio syndrome, my mother with Lou Gehrig's disease and most recently in the past 5-6 years my husband, with rheumatoid arthritis. Each of my dear ones, over time, accepted and endured the pain and still kept on faithfully loving and believing their God. My husband has been my greatest teacher most recently in handling and coping with searing pain. Every morning, he dutifully got up and continued his pursuit of God. Even when ministry efforts weren't always rewarded with success.
We're in the season now where healing and relief have come!!!
Like Job, we're twice blessed to have learned lessons through the pain and come through to now enjoy this time of healing and refreshing!!! Blessed be Jehovah Rapha! (Our Healer)
