For the Love of Camels and Rebekah

After spending one year in the New Testament, I find myself back in the old with a whole set of new children. I have visuals from some of these lessons, but the children are younger now, so I am finding that I have to change things up.

I always start to prepare by reading the Bible story first. As I read, I try to visualize the story happening in my mind's eye. When I read this story of Abraham's servant going to find Isaac's wife, I was struck by the fact that he took ten camels. The Bible is very specific to mention that. It is also very specific that Abraham's servant watched closely as Rebekah drew water for those ten camels. Why? That was a lot of work! A camel can drink 20 to 25 gallons in 10 minutes and up to 40 gallons in one session. And there were 10 of them. The camels are key in understanding the story.

I Quit!

National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, VA

OK, be honest, how many of you have a letter of resignation hidden away in a drawer somewhere? I have been in the ministry long enough to know that almost every pastor out there (lead, senior, youth, kidmin or otherwise) has seriously wanted to quit at least once in their lifetime (for some it might be every Monday morning).

Every once in awhile I come across this file in my documents entitled, "Letter of Resignation." Hmmm, what's that I wondered the first time I saw it. So I opened it. It was a letter I had hurriedly typed to our governing board. It was only a rough draft, but there it was, typos and all. "Wow." I thought as I read it, "Did I really feel like that?" And so I decided to keep it, just to remind myself when I get down, that I have been down before, and kept on.