Reality Check

Yesterday morning I had the privilege to teach in my 4th grade Sunday School class.  We have a great group of kids and they always keep us on our toes.  One of the things I love the most is when they think they have the story down and then we surprise them.  Yesterday was one of those lessons.  We were doing a lesson out of Zephaniah and our memory verse was one of my favorites.

"The Lord your God is with you,

    the Mighty Warrior who saves.

He will take great delight in you;

    in his love he will no longer rebuke you,

    but will rejoice over you with singing.”

Zephaniah 3:17

As the kids were watching the teaching video about the warning the children of Isreal were receiving and the reality of what slavery was, our kids took the stance of "oh yeah it was bad, but that was in the old testament it does not happen now."  I actually giggled because of the reality that is so easy for our children to have, that all the circumstances of people in the Bible were then...they don't happen now.  When we corrected their thinking letting them know that in countries today there are people who are taken into slavery, have to leave everything they have, keep only the clothes on their back and work in horrible circumstances for the rest of their lives really does happen today.  Oh the look on their faces.

As we talked about how hard the lives of the children of Isreal were and then applied it to people today, you could see real understanding come into their faces as we went back over the story and talked about the memory verse.  I love challenging my kids to think and to know that everything we read and learn from the Bible is applicable to today and their lives.

I had a moment to visit with our Children's Director and was sharing with her about our class that morning and we both agreed at how blessed, yet sheltered our children really are.  No matter how difficult our lives get her in the US we are so very blessed.  We get to choose our church, find jobs, have homes and we may not be rich or have fancy anything, but compared to most of the world we are all millionaires.  

I left church asking the Lord to help me raise my girls with a truly understanding of how blessed they are and hopefully with a heart for missions.  I have friends who are missionaries overseas and they are always in my daily prayers as they seek to take the love of Jesus to the lost.  It is easy for us to let ourselves and our children take for granted all we really have.  I encourage you today to pause and think about all you have compared to so many around the world, because compared to them we have nothing to complain about.