I’m sitting at Starbucks reading and preparing my lesson for tomorrow’s Kindergarten Sunday School class. I love these kids and I enjoy teaching the lesson every other Sunday. If I am faithful to the preparation, I usually always learn something very important too. This week’s lesson is from Mark 2:1-12 – Jesus heals a paralytic man after his four friends cut a hole in the roof of a house and let him down (presumably with ropes while he lays on his bed – or mat of some kind). My first thoughts: “Wow, some faith, and some real nerve to cut a hole in someone’s roof!” One take away here is faith also has to have real action, even if it makes me or someone else uncomfortable. The focus of the lesson, though, is the following point: We often focus on the smaller need (in this case being able to walk again) and miss the greater need of having our sins forgiven. All of us would see the inability to walk as a “great need”. That’s the human perspective. But the great need is an eternal perspective – our sins forgiven and a relationship with Jesus, the Author of all things.
How does that fit in the mind of a six year old? That’s where the broken bike and the tiny shoes with knots both come in. A person who has a bicycle with a missing front wheel and complains about the spot of dirt on the bikes’s frame is missing the main point. The guy who has a pair of doll shoes and gripes about the knots which he believes prevent him from wearing the shoes is oblivious to the obvious. Even a young child understands what is really wrong. Children can fret about problems in their lives that we as adults may see as trivial. The ironic thing is that adults fret over many things that God sees as trivial. At the risk of over simplifying, it really all boils down to this truth: our greatest need is a great Savior and the forgiveness He offers to us
I hope that the kids will really get this tomorrow and perhaps you too!