Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Obedient Feet

The sweet girl has been learning the ten commandments. Several months ago I created a little box covered in gold paper (echoes of the Ark of the Covenant) and put ten cards inside it, each bearing one of the commandments. I typed the commandment on one side, and on the other I wrote out a simplified version with some phrases that would help her to understand more fully what each commandment really meant. I also put a small picture of Jesus in the box (one I photocopied from an illustration in one of her favorite children's Bibles). Yes, God's law is a gift, but Jesus is the greatest gift...and when we get to the end of of all our human efforts and realize we truly can't keep the law, we realize we need his grace.

From time to time, we take the cards out and go over them. During the spring we hadn't done it much, but during the summer she's asked to bring them back out again. She likes to line them up in order on the floor. One day recently, when she did that, I commented on how it looked like a path, and how God gave us his laws to help us know how we should live, how we should walk. She hasn't forgotten that, and now she sometimes takes them out and makes a "path" across the carpet on purpose, walking on it as we talk or sing together.

She did that tonight. I watched her dancing feet prancing over the gray cards that almost looked like small stones on our living room rug. "You're walking on the path!" I called out.

And she grinned and replied, "Walking on the commandment path so my feet will obey!"

2 comments:

Erin said...

What a neat way of looking at it, and driving home the point visually! :)

Beth said...

Thanks! It felt like a God-idea. I hadn't really considered putting the cards on the floor and turning them into a path, but once S. started laying them out, I felt like a little lightbulb went off over my head. :-) Nice when that happens!