Shredded Wheat

I've been in the Sunday school room this summer, mostly assisting. Last week we started the Wolof song "Mangi yekkati sa tur", which I (obviously) led, but other than that it's been the church school director. This week, she asked if I would mind taking the lead. It's the summer of psalms, so she said I could work out of any psalm I felt led to.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do, until this week was so hot. There were temperatures in the 100s, which is rare for Wisconsinites. I'd go out to water the garden and see everything completely dried out. Our grass is like straw. In summary, it's dry.

I immediately thought of this verse:

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
    my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
    as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.


And I knew we'd be doing Psalm 63. 


After we'd read through it, and discussed it, I said I had a little activity. Shredded Wheat is not by any stretch a kids' cereal. It's dry and wheaty and way too healthy. I set some in front of all the kids and they cracked it and ate some and then discovered that they were very thirsty - they were all dried up! Before I put them out of their misery and allowed them to go to the water fountain, I asked them to pause and think about how they felt. This was true thirst; they really wanted that water. And in the same way, that's how we need to long for God. We talked about how dry it is outside and how desperate the ground is for water, and that's exactly how desperate we are for Christ, how much we need Him. 

After they had their drink, we looked again at verse 5: 

My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,
    and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips

We had a chance to talk about what it means to be satisfied, and to be complete in the presence of God. If water can satisfy our physical thirst, how much more can the living God satisfy our spiritual thirst?