God the All-Wise

 Last week we saw how David was anointed king; this week we met his son Solomon, who succeeded him as king.  We had only one boy present when we started the Bible story; another arrived later.  The story leader first introduced the boy as King David, but then had to take his crown off and make him sit down to “die”.  So who should be Solomon?  He grabbed the same boy and said, obviously, Ka Ho; he looks exactly like his father David, doesn’t he? :-)

One night when Solomon was sleeping the Lord appeared to him and told him to ask for whatever he most wanted.  Samuel asked for wisdom.  The Lord told him that was a good choice, and because he chose that he would also be given long life, riches, and honor.  The next morning when Solomon woke up he wasn’t sure if it had been a dream or if it was for real.

It was for real: God had surely given him wisdom!  He was sitting on his throne when two women came before him, one holding a baby.  The women go into an argument over whose baby it is and whose baby had died.  They are yanking the baby back and forth; finally Solomon says, give me the baby.  He takes it and lays it down on a stool.  He says, since there is only one baby for the two of you, the best thing is to cut it in two and give you both half.  He has someone come and raise a sword over the baby.  One of the women throws herself over the baby and says no, don’t kill it!  Let her have it!  The second one says, no, cut it in two, that is fair!  Solomon points to the one kneeling over the baby and says she is the real mother and hands  the baby to her.  

 Our game was called, “Wisdom takes all.”  We prepared a large cube with the six sides reading: wisdom, long life, riches, honor, try again, and wisdom.  We had also prepared little cups of different kinds/shapes of sweetened cereal, labeled wisdom, long life, riches, and honor.  Everyone got to play several times by throwing the cube up in the air and seeing what came up.  If they got riches, long life, or honor, they got to take a piece of cereal from the corresponding cup.  But if they got wisdom, they got to take a piece from all four the of the cups.   A popular game, of course!

In our story, Solomon, thankfully, did not cut the baby in two.  But for our craft each child had eight dog-stickers that had been cut in two, they had to find the matches and stick them together on a large sheet of paper.  Some of the kids needed help to focus, but when they paid attention they got them right.