What's my piece of fruit?

This week I taught Jr. High Sunday School because their regular teacher was leading a group on the Walk to Emmaus. I usually help with High School Sunday School, but I haven't actually taught anything yet. My job so far has been to be there to get to know the students and interject anything I feel needs to be said. It's nice because there's no preparation and if Clark is sick and I can't be there I don't have to get a substitute.

Because I don't have to prepare I think I miss out on some of the richness of the lessons. As much as lesson preparation was a burden when I was teaching full-time, now it's actually kind of exciting. I got so much more from the lesson because I had to come up with my own illustrations/examples and be familiar enough with the Scripture to teach on it. Hopefully it connected with the students because I know it impacted me.

The lesson was on wonder. Sounds strange I know. It was on how we should wonder at God because he is awesome. We marvel at his creation and learn something about his attention to details and creativity. We see our own sinfulness and are awestruck that he would give his Son to redeem us when we wanted nothing to do with him. In this life we get small glimpses of the wonder of God, but we can never really comprehend it.

It talked about how so often the things we hear in church and read in the Bible become like "white noise" because we've heard them so many times. We don't wonder at them anymore because they've become mundane. The Scripture we looked at was in Genesis 3 where the serpent tempted Eve and she and Adam ate the forbidden fruit. They had the life. They lived in a perfect garden where they physically walked with God, there was no sin, no one had ever disappointed them or hurt them, they had everything they needed. They traded all that for a piece of fruit. When Satan, through the serpent, tempted them he made God sound like a human being. He took away God's wonder and made it sound like God was holding back something good from them or he was jealous and didn't want them to be like him. He said, "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." He lied to them and didn't tell them all the consequences of knowing good and evil. Little did they know when they ate that piece of fruit that they would be kicked out of the garden, lose direct fellowship with God, work fruitlessly and their oldest son would even kill their younger son. They traded perfection for a piece of fruit.

Of course the point of the lesson wasn't to point the finger at Adam and Eve and say, "Why did you do that?" because we know that any of us in the same situation probably would have done the same thing. The point of the lesson was to ask ourselves "What is our piece of fruit?" What is that thing or things that we place above God and are satisfied with having instead of all God has offered and promised? I thought of a few things before I taught the lesson, but since then it keeps running though my mind, "There's another piece of fruit." It seems that when I get ready to get rid of all the noise and distractions to spend time with God there's always something that comes up that seems more important. Suddenly playing on the computer, checking my facebook, playing words with friends, vacuuming the floor, washing the dishes in the sink, calling a friend on the phone and so many other stupid little things take presidence over wondering at God and spending time with him. Ironically, when I do manage to say no to all my "pieces of fruit" I am never disappointed. I never come away from a Bible study time and think, "Man that was a waste of time." God never disappoints and he always shows me something I didn't see before or reminds me of something about himself or myself that I had forgotten.

Of course it's a little ironic that I sit here on the computer writing about this when my Bible study for today sits in the living room yet to be done, but I had to write while it was fresh on my mind and convicting my heart. It was a much needed reminder to me to prioritize and not let the "pieces of fruit" in my life get in the way of my wonder of God.