To My Sons' Sunday School Teachers-Jealousy, Gifts, And Joseph!

Quinn looked at me with wide 3 year old eyes. “Mommy, you just said what my teacher said in Sunday school! Joseph’s brothers were so jealous and it’s not good to be jealous!” he spoke passionately.

I sat on the couch in our living room with my two oldest across from me. The slinging of words back and forth had erupted just a moment before and both of them were tearing each other down.

“Look down at your arms” I told them.

“See those veins and the blood running through your body? That blood has a special “code” in it. You and your two brothers have that same code. No one else. You guys are special to each other. Bonded. Brothers!” I implored.

“You are not to be unkind, to say mean things, or to be jealous of each other.” I admonished them. “God tells us to only say what is edifying to one another.” It’s a mantra I tell them often. And to myself, just as much.

And though they both looked at me petulantly the moment I spoke of jealousy, my 3 year old lit up. The kids are learning the story of Joseph at our church. Quinn was mesmerized by the fact that Joseph’s brothers were jealous and that they had sold him as a slave.

But he also knew the moral of the story. God had a plan for Joseph-and God has a plan for him too!

I know that the responsibility to teach my kids about God and how to live the life of a Christ-follower is the joyful work of my husband and me. But I have to say, I’m so grateful for Sunday school teachers and AWANA leaders who have poured their lives into my children for the sake of the gospel.

At our church, we are doing a short series about community and emphasizing how we as a body of believers all have gifts to be using so that we are a healthy body. If one of us is not using our gifts, then we are “ripping off” the body of Christ.

On the heels of that sermon, it is such a blessing to see that my sons are benefitting from those who heard the call and answered. Teachers who saw a need, and filled a need.

They signed up to show up. They enter the classrooms, pour goldfish into little white cups, take kids to the little potty, settle disputes over matchbox cars, and tell them about God’s plan for their lives.

I’m deeply grateful.

We’re working on jealousy and uplifting speech over here at the Lia household. Daddy is teaching them, Mommy is training them, and their Sunday school teachers are reaching them. It’s the body of Christ working the way God intended all along.

My children are very young. I know that when you stand before a rough and tumble group that it may sometimes seem like not one word is reaching their ears, much less their hearts. But teachers of little ones,  I’m here to tell you that the Life you are speaking is coursing through their veins and into their hearts every bit as much as the physical life blood my husband and I passed on to them.

So thank you.

It’s worth it. Your service to the Lord matters. Just ask Quinn.

YOUR TURN!! How are you using your gifts to serve the body of Christ? Has your family been richly blessed by the gifts of others in your church too?

It was he who gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, that is, to build up the body of Christ, Ephesians 4:11-12

From him the whole body grows, fitted and held together through every supporting ligament. As each one does its part, the body grows in love. Ephesians 4:16

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Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory. Psalm 115:1

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