Our church has accused all parents of young children to read a Bible story each day to our children that reading my son Noah of the Bible to children has become a routine part of our regular time for bed. Sometimes I try to hit the stories about the current holiday in the Christian calendar and sometimes merely collect stories that seem interesting (there are pictures to help with the selection.) There are also stories that he considers to be the favorites - Noah and the Ark, of course, Zacchaeus (because I love the song), and Jonah.
I've been very happy with his response anxious and reading stories. Even the Bible must be removed to their children to share stories with her stuffed animals - or at least reminiscent of some version or can guess from the photos.
One day, when he told the story of Jonah to Fred Green Rabbit struck me as close to the house of the strike in history - of Noah, for me, for all of us.
Noah's version of Jonah:
God told Jonah to go to a special place, but Jonah did not listen. It was on one boat to another part of the city. So God sent a storm and threw Jonah into the water and a giant fish swallowed him. Jonah was in the waiting time in the fish for three days before God told him he could leave the fish. Jonah was where God told him to go. The End.
Fred Noe: "We must listen to God or you'll get in time out too!"
Noah's story is simplistic, but so is the essence of the story of Jonah. The moral of the story is simply that we must listen to God.
If only it was as simple as that!
Of course I know. No matter what our religion or creed, we know that we must listen to God. We know we must follow the rules and guidelines that God has set down for us.
Children, like Noah, who know they must follow the rules of their parents and the dictates or there will be consequences. Often these consequences involve a time-out to Noah as the story of Jonah and hit him.
It is clear that grows must follow the rules come from many different sources and many are tacit. This is why his father and now to establish rules and boundaries for him. Obviously, it makes our home life easier if you follow the rules and the other provisions necessary for their protection, but more importantly, who taught him to follow the rules of God and society have set a date for him.
We learned the rules as children for the same reasons, but as they grow and learn to respect the rules of God and the punishment society we have received the change and be more subtle. It is no longer placed on the waiting time, but I think the punishment is often presented in a social context or monetary.
For many of us becomes increasingly easy to ignore the death penalty without the threat of a great whale to swallow us.
As a Christian, I believe that God's message for us is simple. He wants us to love and show that love by loving others and help. All lessons and teachings of Jesus can be linked to this simple theme.
It is simple and yet so difficult. What have you done this week to love and honor God? What have you done this week to love and help others?
What worries me is that some people are so involved in the monitoring of other messages that have been collected in the Bible that are often overlooked or are directly opposed to these essential truths. While the Bible and its teaching are incredibly complex, you can find the truth, simply studying the teachings of Jesus and actions. There is truth in the simple question - What would Jesus do not?
It is simple and yet so difficult. What have you done this week to love and honor God? What have you done this week to love and help others?
Of course, the difficult challenge is the fact that by not doing these things that are as bad as Jonah. We're not doing what God told us to do.
Do not look now, but is not that a big whale coming up behind you?
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