Sunday July 5 - Appearances are Misleading

In our All Age Praise on 5 July we looked at: “Appearances are misleading – Judging!”

We had great fun with a brief passage from 1 Samuel, and why Eliab was rejected. For this section, the very young children each chose a cuddly toy of their choice and then said why they liked it. So we learned that it wasn’t necessarily the most beautiful or smart that was selected, but for many reasons.

We then listened to Jesus’ words “Don’t judge others, so that God will not judge you” from Matthew 5.

Following this the older ones explored optical illusions, how they appeared from different angles and the visual deceptions they produced; how mind and sight put things in place that aren’t there and add effects to alter perception. This, as I told, the adults is what happens when we try to judge people; we don’t know why they are how they are, we can never walk in their shoes, so we can’t form an objective opinion. We have to leave that to God. No-one is good enough to judge others. Only the faultless has a right to look for faults in others; and that one is, and can only ever be, our Lord Jesus.

So we came to the conclusion that Appearances are misleading – in judging others we’ll come unstuck. We must learn to think the best of all people and can only hope they’ll do the same for us. We had various songs such as Give me oil in my lamp, Whether you’re one and When I needed a neighbour and enjoyed some children’s interactive prayers by Pauline. It all worked really well.

We left with green and yellow paper heart-shaped promises to re-commit ourselves to God and to each other, but not before we had enjoyed a lovely piece of Hazel’s birthday cake!

Peace and Joy!

Deacon Olivia