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Beware of life’s distractions

Staying on track in life takes a whole lot of effort. Even folks with the best of intentions often find it difficult due to all the distractions in the world around them.

If this is true of adults, then it’s abundantly true of children.

I had the opportunity last week to sit in on a Sunday school class my daughter, Val, teaches. The woman who usually helps her out with part of the lesson was away, so Val recruited me to fill in.

The class is made up of kids ranging in age from 4 to 8 years old. They’re bright, curious, cute … and very easily distracted.

Of course, it doesn’t help that my kind-hearted daughter is considerably less than strict in her teaching method, tending to indulge the tykes as they prattle on about things that have very little to do with the lesson at hand.

Take last Sunday, for example.

The lesson was about Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

Everything was going quite smoothly until Val referred to the serpent as a “snake.” For some reason, this didn’t sit well with Nathan, one of the little boys in the class.

“Miss Valerie, you made a mistake,” he said. “You said ‘snake.’ It wasn’t a snake, it was a serpent.”

“Well,” Val responded with a gentle smile, “A snake and a serpent are the same thing.”

“Yeah, Nate,” Monica, another student in the class, said. “Snakes and serpents are the same. It’s just that serpents live in the water. You know, like sea serpents.”

“That can’t be right, then,” Jillian piped up. “The Garden of Eden wasn’t under water, so how could a sea serpent be there?”

“The Garden of Eden was, too, under water,” Carissa said. “That’s why Moah built the ark with all the animals on it, so they wouldn’t die in the big flood.”

“Not ‘Moah’, Carissa,” Nathan corrected. “His name was Noah, right Miss Valerie?”

“Um, well, yes, that’s right, Nathan.”

“See, I told you the Garden of Eden was under water,” Carissa said. “Miss Valerie just said it!”

“Well, actually, Carissa I was saying that Nathan was right about it being Noah instead of Moah. But the Garden of Eden wasn’t under water.”

“So how come there was a sea serpent in it?”

“It wasn’t a sea serpent, honey. It was a serpent. And it really wasn’t that — it was the devil wearing a disguise, so he could trick Eve into eating from the forbidden tree.”

“Miss Valerie, I never heard of a ‘Bidden’ tree. We have a elm tree in our yard and our neighbor Mr. Reynolds has two apple trees in his,” Michael said.

“Nobody has a ‘Bidden” tree anymore, Michael,” Jillian said. “When the Garden of Eden got flooded they all got swept away in the water.”

At this point, Val and I knew we’d pretty much lost control of the lesson, so we did the logical thing, we broke out the snacks.

Distractions are all around us. We mustn’t let the enemy use them to throw us off track in our journey of faith.

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