There's No Water in the Hump!

 (camel snacks...courtesy of my mom)

Walking by the edge of the pool, dangerously close to the splash zone, I spotted a young family with an adorable little boy.

So, in my overly enthusiastic, evangelistic mode, I  invited them to this week's VBS.

As I explained to the mom and dad that we would be having tons of fun while talking about ways to serve our families, neighbors and Jesus, the boy just kept cannon-balling into the pool.

"Hey son," says dad. "They're going to have a fun bible school where you can learn about baby Jesus!"

Jump! Splash! Cannon-ball!!!
He surfaces again.

"Wouldn't that be fun?"

I had to interrupt, but quashed my desire to refer him to last week's marketing blog, and instead with a smile said, "Baby Jesus is probably kind of boring to a 5 year old."

So I give it a try, "Would you like to come have fun and learn about the Jesus who walked on water? That would be cool, huh?! How awesome is that? Maybe you could be a water walker too!"

Of course, I was attempting to appeal to the little boy's adventurous instincts, but he was really only interested in splash-balling enough water to hit the lady sitting on her porch in building 7.

Suddenly, as if perfectly on cue, I hear our very quiet, hardworking maintenance man pipe up in his usual un-overly excited voice, "I just wanna meet the Jesus that turned water into wine."

"Amen!" the parents shouted and we all cracked up laughing.

What I learned this week at Vacation Bible School is simple.

You can't make a kid be a camel if they don't want to be a camel.

You can coach, excite, order, beg, plead or dance around super silly, but in the end, being a camel is really up to them.

And the holy spirit.

It's pretty much the same way with adults. We can't change people. It does no good to nag. God himself is the agent of change.

We can love them and pray for them.

And that's about it.

And that's about everything.

It's the whole, "You can lead a horse to water...but you cannot make him drink," thing.

But...if we take the whole huge instruction book called the Bible (one of the kids said it was bigger than "War and Peace" which is amusing in itself) and boil the message down to the two most important lessons in it, it's revolutionary.

"Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength...and love your neighbors as yourselves."
That's it. I like things super simple. As we work on these two things, it gets the focus off of "us" and our wants and our needs.

In simply serving others, we give God the opportunity to be God. On every street, in every city, every country, on every continent around the world. Even if we don't understand or agree on every word between Genesis and Revelation.

You can't make someone be a camel if they don't want to be a camel. But you can lead them with love through the desert and wait for God to work.

In God's Big Backyard, we all have a part to play.

As I was passing out the beautiful boy/girl sugar cookies, one of the arms broke off in the baggy. I was prompted by a Jesus one-liner and said, "Well,since we are one body, made up of many different parts. Who wants the arm?"

I know my part.

I'm the mouth piece that keeps stepping on someone's toes.

The second most important thing I learned was that camels don't actually store water in their humps. I always thought they did!

Nope. It's just a fat hump. The water is stored in their bloodstreams so they can go a long, long way in the desert. They also have three eyelids but that's not really relevant to the post, it's just a fun fact.

Two of them have lashes.
One does not.

I hope I don't get lashes for saying the word, "poop" in VBS.

It was relevant.

Oh, and joyfully, just so you know, the camel kid came willingly on her own after a while.