Perspective on Jesus

In the last couple of months, I’ve begun teaching the 5-year-old class at school. It’s been a lot of fun, especially since a few of them were in my first class two years ago and I’m constantly in amazement at how far they’ve come – in their English speaking as well as in their personality and individuality.

While teaching, I’m finding that one of my favorite subjects to do with them is Social Studies because Social Studies is apparently code for “Bible” in this curriculum. With the exception of a couple of worksheets here and there about some kind of randomness, the kids generally get to look at pictures while I read to them a Bible story. The reason that this is my favorite subject to teach them is because of the conversations that are had after the story is read. Of course, I have comprehension questions to ask the kids after the reading, but while we start off somewhere simple and logical, we generally end up somewhere completely unexpected. Like when Joseph became the second-in-command of Egypt, it wasn’t the forgiveness that Joseph showed his brothers or even the message of God using evil for good (which was the books intent) that the kids were concerned about. They were more interested in how and why Joseph’s father favored Joseph. When Abraham and Lot chose their land and went their separate ways, it was God’s creation that we spent more time talking about than God’s promised blessing. And the story of the Ten Lepers….the kids remembered my injured foot a few months back and pointed out that Jesus was the one who healed me.

Oh to think like a 5-year-old!

So last week we read about Nicodemus - the simplified version of course. But the story still mentioned sin and the kids weren’t exactly clear on what sin was, so I used time out as an illustration. And I pointed out that there was not a single perfect kid in class because everyone had been in time out at least once (at which point one of the kids asked if my mom ever put me in time out….they thought it was pretty funny that Ms. Raychel has been put in time out). And then one of them excitedly blurts out, “Jesus had no time out and helps my no time out because he loves me!”

That was the moment for me.

I love doing Bible stories with these kids because there is always a moment when I can see that God has just revealed Himself to one of these little ones in a new way, and that’s a beautiful moment.

May I be constantly reminded that He is still revealing himself to me as much as he is to these little ones. We are never too young, never too old, too bad or too good to learn more about this infinite God that we serve.