Submissiveness
“Submit to one another out of reverence to Christ.” – Ephesians 5:21
Today I wanted to focus on the benefits of submitting to God. As already established in Post 1 and Post 3 on the submissiveness topic, God want us to submit to His will because He loves us, knows everything and has wonderful plans for our life when we choose to follow Him. I wanted to talk about this more in our activity today.
First, I printed and cut out a picture of both of the girls.
Then, we traced their hands. I cut around them and then we
The final thing we did was talk about God’s protection. I gave the example of stealing. If they didn’t listen to God’s Word saying we shouldn’t take from other people, then there are negative consequences that can result. I said, “What if you were in a store, and you decided to take something that you didn’t pay for. That’s called stealing. God’s hands were over you in protection, but when you decided not to submit to His ways, some of that protection is removed (I took the hands away).” Then, I discussed the consequences that could happen to someone who took something from a store. I gave a few more examples of things that could happen when we choose to not submit to God’s guidance. Each time there was a bad decision made, I took away the hands – not to represent the lack of God’s presence but there is an element of protection that is taken away. There are consequences that come when we decided to do things our own way. * Please take time to read the comment section. A reader wrote in with a very thoughtful response to this. I really want to clarify that there is not some sort of magic protection for believers. Sin is in our world, and often we are going to suffer…because of other people’s sin or just because we live in a fallen world. We may suffer for our faith itself. Christians are not exempt from pain and hurt. The one important promise is that you won’t walk thought that pain alone. God is always there to help you through the suffering. It’s often those times where our relationship with Him grows to an all new, deeper level. He wants to come along side and comfort and love you through those times. I am going to go back and make that point clear to my kids today. I did want to show how there are consequences for sin and the less you choose to stray from God’s law, the less you will be susceptible to those consequences. *
Excellent. I may use this idea for children’s fellowship.
I hesitate to comment because I’m sure you mean well, but I feel so strongly about this: God doesn’t ‘protect’ people who are obedient to him and not protect people who aren’t. He just doesn’t.
This implies that people who are victims of horrible tragedies, storms, and just random acts of violence are somehow to blame for their misfortune.
And before you say that “well, that’s not what I mean,” consider this lesson and what it is really teaching your kids. This lesson about cost me my faith (when I WAS on the other end of violence…and a christian at the same time!)
God promises to be with us always. He tells us that in this world we WILL have suffering. He doesn’t promise an easy life without trauma.
I’m very glad you chose to comment. Thank you for your thoughtful response. I completely agree with you that we will suffer in general and suffer for our faith. There isn’t some magical protection over us from tragedy just because we choose to believe. I was sensitive to it while talking to the girls, but I don’t think I was sensitive enough. I really want to spend time to clarify for my kids what I meant by this. I agree that he doesn’t promise us an easy life. I am so sorry that this message almost cost you your faith, and I’m so sorry about the pain that was inflicted upon you. I hate to say, “That’s not what I mean…” because you didn’t want me to, but I want to say that anyway. I want to go back to make it clear to my kids (and my readers) that it doesn’t mean bad things won’t happen to you. I do want them (and my readers) to take away that there are consequences to our actions that can result in bad things. When we follow God’s laws, you are less susceptible to those negative consequences. Let’s take God’s ideas about sex for example. If people followed his desire for sex to stay within marriage, there would be less consequences. If my kids made the choice to wait until marriage, their chances to get an STD, AIDS, unwanted pregnancy, deeper heartbreak, etc. would go down. They still could have something inflicted on them, so you are completely right about there not being 100% protection like I may have implied. However, the risks for certain consequences lowers as one chooses to follow God’s directions. I really do want to clarify this to my girls and will direct my readers down to the comment section so that they can be exposed to our discussion. I would love to hear more of your thought or others thoughts on this topic. I really am glad you replied, so thank you for that.
Thank you for clarifying. I absolutely agree that there are consequences to our actions, and following God’s Word protects from many of those things.
It’s just that so much of the pain of this life has nothing to do with any of that…and one person can choose to do evil against another, and God doesn’t always protect us.
Hearing the message over and over as a child that God would protect me did nothing for me when I was on the other side of terrible evil…
I appreciate your gracious response.
I pray my own children’s faith will be resilient and strong in the face of suffering…may it be so for yours as well.
I just sent a message on my Facebook encouraging people to come back and read your comments.
I always feel like this is a tough area to teach little kids because they believe wholeheartedly that the world is a good place. And I don’t want them to be afraid of the world, but I do want them to understand safety & caution, & choices & consequences. One thing I use is sometimes one of them will make a poor choice & they all have to suffer the consequences (i.e. not getting to watch a movie in the car, etc.) so that they start to understand that sometimes you have consequences even though you did the right thing, & sometimes other people end up with consequences because you didn’t do the right thing.
Thanks for sharing.