An Obedient Boy

Just a few more months until we are finished with the second three-year cycle through our Bible stories.  I decided to do the I Samuel series before the Attributes of God series this time, so that we would have more flexibility toward the end of how many attributes to do.  So we started this week, then, with the boy Samuel in the temple.

We had previously done the story of Hannah’s prayer for a son, so we just briefly introduced her, had her kneel and pray for a son, and—voila! The boy Samuel!  She was so thankful she decided she wanted to make an offering to God of her most precious possession.  Which was, of course, Samuel.  So she takes him and introduces him to Eli, the priest.  So now he lives with Eli in the temple.  Now it’s nighttime.  Eli sits in the recliner with his feet up and is covered with a  blanket, while young Samuel lies on a towel on the floor.  Then a voice from “somewhere” calls, Samuel, Samuel!  He thinks it’s Eli and goes to ask him what he wants.  Nothing, I didn’t call you; go back to sleep.  This happens a second time, same result, Samuel lies back down on the floor.  The third time, is Eli playing tricks on him or what?  But his responsibility is not to second-guess Eli but to be obedient.  So he gets up again to check on Eli.  Finally it dawns on Eli that God is calling to Samuel, so he tells him what to say if the voice calls again.

The voice does call again, only this time embodied in a be-haloed angel.  Samuel stands up and says, speak, I am listening.  Here we skipped the part about Eli & family being punished.  Instead we just had the angel tell Samuel that because he was so obedient to both man and God, so everyone was going to be obedient to him when he grew up.

Our game centered on this theme of obedience, with each person drawing a card with a “command” on it which they were supposed to obey.  Mostly simple & fun things like, call your mother on her cellphone, or, shake hands with three different people.  One card said, find your mother, tell her you love her, and give her a hug.  Ka Hei got that one & his mother wasn’t there but his dad was.  Good enough.  Again, didn’t have the camera ready fast enough, RATS!  He was so cute about it.  At 17, he’s at least as tall as dad.  He bashfully said, “I love you” and then hooked one arm around dad’s neck and gave this really cheesy grin.

Our craft was “obedience certificates”  Each child got a large card that was pre-printed with “I, ___________, will be obedient this week by_______________”  They were to fill in their names in the first blank, and then we had the moms write out one thing they would like them to do (or not do!) every day, for them to copy on the second line.  Then they trimmed them with some pretty paper strips, and they were sent home with enough stars for six days’ obedience.  We’ll have to ask how many stars everyone earned, this Sunday!