Our daughter, Alannah, is running a children's day camp program this summer at the church. We got a government grant and she is enjoying her first official job since she loves children and loves being with them. She runs it from 10:00 am to noon each day, Monday to Friday and I usually am there to be one of her helpers. The kids begin the day by singing action choruses, followed by a Bible story, crafts, snacks, games and a life application story.
Yesterday, the Bible story was about Moses leading the children of Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land. While Alannah was telling the story she was pretending to be Moses and had the children marching behind her pretending to be the children of Israel. She walked all around the sanctuary of the church telling the children how God provided a cloud for the Israelites to follow during the day and a pillar of fire to lead them at night. She told them how God will show us the right way to go too. She talked about how God will meet their every need just like He did for the children of Israel. She did all this while walking around the sanctuary leading the children.
I was sitting on the front pew watching the children as they marched, each one listening intently to 'Miss Alannah' tell the story. While I was sitting there the Lord spoke to me and allowed me to witness a wonderful lesson. On the first time around the sanctuary, at the beginning of the march, little Starley, who is only five years old, walked right out of one of her flip flops. She kept on walking, not even hesitating to try to get it back on. Two steps later she stepped out of the second one and again she kept on walking, not even looking down at her lost flip flop. On each time around the sanctuary she just walked past the flip flops as if she didn't need them any more. She never even looked at them. She just walked around them.
It struck me of how much like our Christian walk this illustrated Bible lesson really was. Sometimes we can get distracted by what is going on around us and we lose our focus, but Starley didn't. She was intent on following 'Miss Alannah' and she wasn't going to let losing a flip flop, or two, hold her back from doing just that. If she had stopped to put one on, she would have lost her place in the line of marchers. She might have missed some of the story. She chose instead to keep on walking. She wasn't going to let anything hold her back.
Hebrews 12:1 tells us that "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Have you lost your focus? Are you being weighed down by sin that will hold you back from living the life God wants you to? Let me encourage you today to be like this precious five year old child: renew your focus on Who you should be following after. Get rid of those things in your life that hinders your Christian walk and confess your sin to the Father and He will forgive you and give you a fresh start in life's race. Keep on walking following after Jesus!
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