Goop

Two weeks ago I participated in a Vacation Bible School on the adventures of Daniel and his friends Hananiah, Mishial, and Azariah. Throughout the week I was in charge of 6 sometimes 7 kids. We did the different crafts in the marketplace, saw a “real lion” (a dog with a lion hair cut), played games, and visited Daniel (An actor). We also had tribal time (The children were separated into the tribes of Israel since its Vacation Bible School. Anyway, my tribe was Levi.

 Everyday I taught the children material given to me by the curriculum. I tweaked the material by adding or emphasizing things God put on my heart. One of these was sin which the curriculum presented on day 4 of 5. Their interactive teaching tool for the day was a black goop which had a similar feel as jello but stuck to itself better. The goop represented our yucky sin. The stuff was more of a distraction than a helpful teaching tool, but I tried my pitiful best to communicate the lesson behind the goop. My best explanation of the situation could be filed under disaster. I had a debriefing with some of the other tribe leaders who had similar experiences with the goop. This was disappointing to me, for it was something I really wanted to communicate to the kids. But one thing you should know about our Father, or rather us, is that out interpretation of His work in our lives is often incorrect. We thing something God puts on your heart is for a certain individual when in reality it is for  a group of people. Stuff like that. Anyway, I refused to allow any of the kids to take home the nasty black goop, and eventually threw it away keeping it as far from myself as possible. I swear that stuff was alive. Well that goop, two weeks later came back.

I like how The Blind Side portrays it. The mother, Leigh,  has just taken in a boy from the street and is at a brunch with her girlfriends. After stating that she might adopt the boy one of the gal’s says, “You’re changing that boy’s life.” Leigh replies, “No, he’s changing mine.” When I face the monster that is temptation I do a few things. One of them is think, live, and embrace the cross of Jesus Christ. This means claiming the freedom only found in Him. One of the things you have to do to embrace the cross is to think of Jesus on it. Of course there’s the nails that pierced His hands and feet, and the sword the pierced His side. Those are definitely things I would rather not have happen to me. But then there’s the whole "He took on sin.” I never even started to comprehend that. To truly embrace the cross of Jesus Christ I have now started to think of my sin and the feeling of death that resides in me after committing it. Then I think of the goop. My death goop. My death goop full of sadness, hatred, tears, pain, and hell. Jesus took on it all. All of my goop. All of my sadness, my hatred, my tears, my pain, and my hell. And he took on yours. Think of anyone, anywhere, ever. He won for them. Don’t you ever forget that victory. Don’t you ever forget that cross.