Reflections - Thoughts about Bible Stories

It's that time again! Everyone is planning. Our kids are preparing to go back to school and Sunday school. We are planning the church year and getting all the things ready. It's easy to get caught up in all the preparations.

Here's something that I've been thinking about - we can only prepare so much and God will do the rest.  I was reminded of that again over the summer.

At one of our vacation Bible school days in July,  we were reading stories about Jesus and water. We read the scriptures in which Jesus calms the storm and  Jesus and Peter are walking on water.
I made so many plans. I made sure we had crafts and fun activities planned to keep everyone's interest.  Yet despite all the fun activities and things we had planned,  I was reminded just how important and enough it is to just tell the stories.


I asked the kids,  "What other stories about water do you remember from the Bible?"
I got some of the responses you would expect:

"When God created the oceans."
"When Noah built the ark!"

But then, from small little voice on the other side of the room I hear a tiny girl say,
"Baptism" " and "the story about the woman at the well."

Wow. She was half paying attention and looking at a book. She was pretty distracted and not really paying attention to what was going on in the room. But she could recall the stories that she had learned and could connect the concept about how water is used in the Bible to show us how we are all connected to God and each other.

God is here and speaking to the kids through these stories.

We can make all the plans and hope for the best - but we can also trust the stories speak for themselves. And they will. And God will do the work.