Walking Humbly

Today, the Hooties and I were doing our Bible time.  We use the Virtue Training Bible.  Each day, I pick a virtue to focus on.  Today's lesson was on humility/being humble.

We started off by reading 1 Peter 5: 5b-7.

"God opposes those who are proud.  But he gives grace to those who are not. (Proverbs 3:34)  So don't be proud.  Put yourselves under God's mighty hand.  then he will honor you at the right time.  Turn all your worries over to him.  He cares about you."

Then, we read Romans 12:3.

God's grace has been given to me.  So here is what I say to every one of you.  Don't think yourself more highly than you should.   Be reasonable when you think about yourself.  Keep in mind the amount of faith God has given you." 

When I was reading these verses, I asked the Lord to help me bring the truth of walking humbly to life in a way that the Hooties could understand.  Nothing came right away, so we took a few minutes and talked about walking humbly and what that might look like.  Then we also talked about what it might look like if we walked around proudly.  The most common answer was walking around with our nose up in the air.  Then as we were getting ready to pray the Lord gave me an activity to do with them.  

We have a really long hallway that leads to all of the bedrooms.  I went and got some stuffed animals and set them down the hallway...some on the sides and some in the middle.  Then I brought the Hooties one by one with their eyes closed to the start of the hallway.  Before they opened their eyes, I had them put their nose up in the air...walking proudly.  I told them that they had to keep walking down the hallway looking up at the ceiling.  Once they got to the end of the hallway, I brought them into one of the bedrooms...they were still holding their nose in the air, so they couldn't see anything.  When we got into the bedroom, I asked them what stuffed animal they saw as they walked.  All of them said they didn't see any stuffed animals.  I then explained to them that when we walk around proudly, we often miss opportunities to minister to people that God puts in our path.  After talking about that for a little bit, we went back out to the start of the hallway.  I told the Hooties that each stuffed animal represented a person...this one was homeless, this one is a single mom, this one just had surgery, this one just had a baby.  I then had them walk back down the hallway, and we stopped at each stuffed animal and discussed how we could help a homeless person, a single mom, a person who just had surgery, a mom just having a baby.  

It was so neat watching the Hooties share how they would help each person.  I stopped and thanked God for giving me this illustration so we don't miss opportunities to serve others.  I thanked Him for using me to teach the Hooties this lesson.  After the lesson, we had a sweet prayer time.  The older children prayed these beautiful prayers of asking God to help them see opportunities to serve others.  And as I continue to reflect on this lesson, I seek Him knowing that He will place opportunities before us...all we have to do is walk humbly.