Our New Class Member

We've been reading about King David in worship with my students and are now reading about his son, King Solomon. We learned all about the Temple that he built, how they did it without loud noises, it's covered in gold and such. Yesterday we read about the dedication of the Temple.

We read King Solomon's prayer. How he asked God to bless the people, to be a God they could turn back to and be forgiven, how the Temple would be a place of refuge and a home for God. Then at the end of King Solomon's prayer, God accepted the sacrifices in a GIANT funnel of fire. The presence of God filled the  place and the people knew He had found their gift acceptable.

A few of my students had big eyes at the thought of giving God a gift and Him taking it. They wanted to know how that worked. I told them about giving God my life, letting Him live in my body and help me make good choices and forgiving me when I didn't. I told them they just have to do their best and then tell God it's for Him.

Then God suggested to my heart that I ask the students if they wanted to give God our classroom.

They replied with a very enthusiastic yes. So we talked about how He could take our gift, live here with us at school and teach us to be warriors for God (something we talked about David being and us wanting to be too).

Then we all knelt in a circle, like we do every morning, and we prayed for God to come into our classroom and live with us.

God now lives here in our classroom. His presence wasn't as big as a cloud or funnel of fire but more of a still small voice.

Welcome to our classroom God, may you find our gift acceptable and open.