It's funny though. He's all consumed with the airplane while at church. He stays around in his classroom longer so he can finish it just right. It's his best friend and main form of entertainment during "big church." Even walking out to the car, he usually asks me a couple times if I still have it. But guess what happens when we get home?
He could care less.
Yep. That's right. We get home and he doesn't give a flip. In fact, my children could usually care less about any craft, coloring sheet or project that makes it's way back to our house. Most our projects from church end up (I am sorry to say)...in the trash. I understand this. If you have kids, I am sure you understand as well. We can't keep everything, right? However, it doesn't keep me from staying up till midnight Saturday night trying to think of a cool project for the kindergarten class to do when Joey and I teach the next day. Or from going to Wal-mart at 11 p.m. for the sole purpose of finding river rocks so we can make piles of them when studying Joshua chapter 4. I am always grateful to my kids Sunday school teachers for the time and love they put into planning these lessons and crafts. Their creativity pays off. The kids almost always remember the lesson that correlates with the craft we bring home. We usually ask them on the drive home what they learned and inevitably their responses are bursting with enthusiasm for the lessons learned. (Thank you teachers! - Job well done!)
But after a while, they do forget. The coloring sheet gets taken down from the fridge. The craft made out of pipe cleaners falls behind the bed. The pile of 12 river rocks finds it's way into the fish tank. They forget.
You know what though? So do I.
I am ashamed to admit it, but I'm a lot like my kids. I often leave church all excited about my lessons learned only to arrive home and...well, forget them. I'm just like the person described in James 1:22-25. *sigh* *sigh*
But I don't want to forget. The past few weeks, I've taken home from church a renewed determination NOT to forget. While our church was without a pastor for an entire year, we were blessed with amazing guest speakers and associate pastors who filled our pulpit. Much of the teaching was too good to forget. I don't want to forget any of it. For the past two weeks, our new pastor has been preaching. He is a great teacher and both Joey and I left church this past week with a genuine excitement and enthusiasm about the leadership and teaching he will bring to our church. He is an expository teacher, but he pauses periodically to say things like "so how can we apply this?" He's going to make it difficult to forget, Amen. Preach the Word Pastor Johnston!
With my renewed determination to leave church with the right things and NOT forget the good things that I learn comes a renewed determination to stop leaving church with the wrong things. Let me explain. Some weeks, I leave church with one (or some combination of) the following:
1. A plank in my eye. But, by golly, I sure have gotten good at "speck spotting" in other people's eyes. Shame on me.
2. A fretful feeling that so-and-so must hate me. You know when you smile at someone and they don't smile back? That always sends me into a tailspin and usually by the end of the day, I've convinced myself that that particular so-and-so must hate me. Selfish, self-focused me. Shame on me.
3. Vindictive feelings toward another person's kid. When either of my kids come out of class and tell me that a fellow classmate made fun of them for some silly reason or said something mean, I immediately want to go loco on the child or the parents. Honestly, my initial response to this kind of thing is worse than your average junior high age girl. I have some growing to do. Side note: I have grown a bit. This happened to Hannah at Music Camp yesterday. I didn't go loco. I told Hannah she can choose to show the love of Jesus to that girl and see if that changes things. Today I picked Hannah up and she told me that she smiled at the girl today and the girl smiled back. Then they played together the rest of the morning. Apparently they are now bff. Huh. Apparently the whole loving your enemies thing does work. :)
4. A pat on the back (from myself). Sometimes I hear a sermon and go away feeling good about myself. Usually it is one of those sermons that I am constantly looking around to see if some other so-and-so is listening because I am pretty sure that so-and-so needs to hear that particular message. It's odd, but usually it's a sermon that touches on pride vs. humility. Obviously, those kinds of sermons are not for me (see #1). Shame, shame, shame on me.
No more 1 through 4! I'm moving on. I'm going to take home from church some good application. I don't want to forget it either.
Oh yes... And I hope Jonah keeps making paper airplanes for me to stick in my purse. It'll remind me of that time that the Lord used his green paper airplanes to TEACH me a good lesson.
