Chapel Blog
Wandering Through WorldWonder: Chapter 5
Read Chapter 5: Rubber Boots and Bubbles
Back in chapter 2, while Mr. Heetderks (who represents God in this story) is carrying Mac away from the firepit, he turns back to Mica and says, “Come on Mica, you don’t need to stay up there, I think. You can come back with me. After we get your brother settled, I can give you the tour around WorldWonder.” He makes a promise to Mica in chapter 2 that he fulfills in chapter 5. God always keeps His promises!
Back in chapter 2, while Mr. Heetderks (who represents God in this story) is carrying Mac away from the firepit, he turns back to Mica and says, “Come on Mica, you don’t need to stay up there, I think. You can come back with me. After we get your brother settled, I can give you the tour around WorldWonder.” He makes a promise to Mica in chapter 2 that he fulfills in chapter 5. God always keeps His promises!
In chapter 3, however, Mica has to face Doc, a Burmese python who represents evil. In chapter 4 she is left behind in the Nature Center and struggles with insecurity, feeling like she has been abandoned. Mica is facing a reality that we all must navigate - the gap!
There is a gap between when God makes His promise to us and when He keeps it, and that gap can feel very wide. Learning to rely on God’s faithfulness, like our verse for the year (Psalm 86:11) instructs, requires us to hold onto God’s promise even while we face evil and feel abandoned.
As parents, we are going to let our kids down, it cannot be avoided. As fantastic as our faculty and staff are and as amazing as Westminster is, it is inevitable that we will make mistakes and get it wrong sometimes. Your kids likely have wonderful friends, but it is inevitable that friends will sometimes say and do mean things and your kids will face rejection and disappointment. This is the normal experience of life. We don’t like it, and we campaign to change it, but it will never change. We are not God. When we make a promise, we don’t always keep it.
Learning to look past the way we are always treated by others to discover that God is different is challenging, but we must do it. We must realize that God is not like everyone else we interact with. People, even the best of them, will fail us. We will even fail ourselves, but God will not.
In chapel this week we talked about trust by playing a game called, “Can I sit on it?” I set up several different objects on stage and then tested each to see if they made good seats. Some of them looked sturdy and were. Some looked sturdy but were not. Some did not look sturdy at all but made for excellent seats. Some did not look sturdy at all, and they were not. It was a silly illustration, but one that I hope helps your kids understand trust a little better.
We cannot build our trust in God based on what we see and experience. If we do, then we’ll assume he abandoned us to face evil and wander around alone, like Mica in the Nature Center, when in fact He’s just outside giving Mac a bath. God (Mr. Heetderks) always keeps His promises and even if it appears sometimes like we can’t trust Him, we always can!
Questions:
In chapel this Tuesday, the teacher had a bunch of different kinds of seats on stage, were there any surprises in how some of those chairs worked? Which was the best one?
What is a promise? Do you make promises? Do you always keep the promises you make?
Activity:
Play, “can I sit on it?” with your kid(s). Allow them to find a few objects around the house for you to test. They’ll likely have more fun trying to get you to sit on untrustworthy seats then on trustworthy ones, play along. Hopefully, your engagement will spark some fun memories and a reference point for a conversation about trust.
Westminster Christian School, located in Palmetto Bay, Florida, is a private, college-preparatory school for children from preschool through twelfth grade.