I was able to go on a wonderful camping vacation last week in the mountains. It was breathtaking to see all of God's glorious creation in massive forms! Huge mountains, spectacular waterfalls, enormous boulders were all reminders of the magnificent ways that God spoke everything into existence! At our campsite, we found a creek that you could travel out to the middle of via a whole bunch of stones.
At first it was so hard to walk across all those stones. We all kept falling and slipping and just plain struggled to get across. These rocks were definitely stumbling blocks for us. After a while, we realized that there was a more effective way to get across them. We figured out which type of rocks were slippery, how to test a rock to see if it was wiggly, and how to map out our path so that we would have adequate rocks to get across. This totally painted a picture in my mind of how we view our paths in life. We can either view things that happen or circumstances as either a stumbling block or a stepping stone. When a situation arises, we can look at it as a major pain, a stumbling block, that ruins our day or week and can alter God's plan for us. Or we can view them as stepping stones. Things that are placed in front of us that God wants to use to teach us, move us, and direct us onto His path for us. Jeremiah 29:11 says - For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." God's plans include stepping stones. He does not want to harm us and cause stumbling blocks in our life. He wants us to be successful. What are your stumbling blocks in your life? I asked the 3rd - 5th graders in Awana what some stumbling blocks for them could be. They told me they have fear, they have bad habits, they talk too much, etc. We also talked about how they could be a stumbling block for someone else. We then decided to commemorate the lesson by painting a reminder to turn our stumbling blocks into stepping stones.
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