BEAUTY IN HUMBLE PLACES: sunday school, weeks 10 & 11.

i had good intentions of posting last week's sunday school lesson, but procrastination got the best of me.
so now you get 2 sunday school recaps. :)

WEEK 10:

jonah and the whale.

memory verse:

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble."

-psalm 46:1.

to help them learn their memory verse, i had them go "fishing".

now i realize that you can't actually catch a whale with a fishing pole, but i told them to have a big imagination.

when i originally had this idea, i was worried they would think it was too "baby-ish", but they never cease to surprise me.

they loved this game and ended up standing on a chair to make it harder to "catch" the whales.

because jonah and the whale is a story that kids usually learn at a younger age, i asked the boys to tell me their version of jonah and the whale by acting it out. this was comical. their reenactments were hilarious. but i wanted to go deeper into the story by showing them how we can learn valuable life lessons from jonah.

jonah 1:1-3.

the Lord told jonah to go to ninevah, which was 500 miles from his hometown. that would be about a month-long journey to get to ninevah. i asked the boys to give me several examples of why they think jonah ran.

he was scared.
he didn't want to travel that far.
he had other plans.
he knew how wicked ninevah was.
he was lazy.

jonah wasn't running from his assignment, he was running from God.

jonah 1:4-10.
in this passage, we see that God caused a great storm. jonah knew the storm was happening because of him.

jonah 1:11-17.
picture this: you're on a boat. a rough storm blows through. some crazy dude who's been sleeping claims that throwing him overboard will calm the storm. what would you say/do? i asked the boys that question, and they said they would think he was crazy.

ultimately, they threw jonah overboard and a great fish swallowed him. he was in the fish for 3 days and 3 nights.

chapter 2 is jonah's prayer to God while he is in the fish. can you imagine being in a large fish? like, gross.
after running as far away from God as he could, jonah hit rock bottom and had nowhere else to turn.
i love what he says in verse 8: "those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs."

we can learn some valuable lessons from jonah.

you can't escape God.
running from God makes the situation worse.
God's plan for us is better than any plan we could have for ourselves.
faith is taking a step in the direction God wants you to go, even if you can't see the whole path.

while i read the story to the boys, i gave them pipe cleaners to make a whale.
they had a lot of fun with this project. here is one of the boys' whales:

he even made jonah in the whale!

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WEEK 11:

this week's lesson was about the creation, as requested by the boys.

memory verse:

"in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."

-genesis 1:1.

genesis 1:1-2.
God created the heavens and the earth. nothing or no one, except God, existed before creation. the boys, like myself, cannot comprehend that God has always been here. as humans, we have the mindset of a beginning and an end. that's always been something that i thought was astounding and beautiful all at the same time.

creation:
day 1: day and night. (vv. 3-5)
day 2: the sky. (vv. 6-8)
day 3: sea, dry ground, vegetation. (vv. 9-13)
day 4: sun, moon, stars. (vv. 14-19)
day 5: fish and birds. (vv. 20-23)
day 6: land animals and humankind. (vv. 24-31)
day 7: God rested. (ch. 2, vv. 1-3)

one of the boys asked why God rested.
"when God rested, he endorsed all of creation. there was nothing more to do. the sabbath was intended to celebrate God's finished work; the seventh day would be set apart as holy and dedicated to the Creator, who also rested." -nlt study bible.

the bible teaches us that

God created the heavens and the earth.
God created everything from His word or from the earth.
God said that His creation was 'very good'.

genesis 2:7 & 22.
God created adam from the dust of the earth and eve from adam's rib.
they thought that was cool and gave me the visual and sound effect of God ~~putting~~ punching his fist into adam's side to get his rib.
oh, boys will be boys.

while i taught the lesson, the boys made a "creation diorama" using play-doh, stickers, and pipe cleaners.