After reading James 3:13 to 4:6 tonight, we tackled the topic of wisdom. First, we gave a few of the kids a piece of wood and several long nails. We asked one of them to use a hairbrush to hammer one of the nails into the wood. Next, we asked one of the kids to use a spoon to hammer a nail into the board. One more we told to take their shoe off and use it to try and hammer a nail into the board. Obviously all attempts failed!
We broke the kids into groups of two then and passed out an exercise called Biblical Wisdom or Worldly Wisdom. One the left, were the first halves of "wisdom", either found in the Bible or not. On the right, were the last halves to finish those wisdom phrases. The kids had to first match up the phrases to complete each piece of wisdom. Then they had to put a "B" next to the phrase if they thought it came from the Bible or a "W" next to the phrase if they thought it was a worldly saying. For example...Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me...Two heads are better than one...If at first you don't succeed, try, try again...Saved by the skin of your teeth...You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink...Cleanliness is next to godliness...Don't count your chickens before they hatch. You get the picture! You'd be amazed which of these (and many others we tackled) are actually found in the Bible, like saved by the skin of your teeth in Job 19:20! The kids were surprised by more than a few!
The point is that, sometimes we receive what we believe to be wisdom from others, books we read, the actions of others in similar situations...when in reality, what we've received is just a bunch of "hooey" the world passes off as wisdom. True wisdom can only be found in God's Word and in listening to, memorizing, and obeying it.
Back to our wood demonstration, we gave one of the kids a hammer then and asked him to nail the nail into the wood. Amazingly, it worked way better than the hairbrush, spoon, or shoe had. See what happens when you use the right tools to get a job done? In the same way, we should only use God's Word as a tool in discerning what is wisdom and what is not...wisdom that dictates our words and actions in all kinds of situations!
Now we have demonstrated this to the kids before. We have talked to them over and over again about how the Bible is the only tool they need for their lives. By now, we get some yawns, some sighs, and even some eye rolls. Some of the kids we know are even thinking, "How can the Bible really help me solve ___________________________________?" We don't know everything these guys are going through and some solutions may seem impossible to them and they may wonder how the Bible can ever apply to their circumstances. So what did we do? What we always do in ZG...we watched a movie clip!!
We watched a clip from The Karate Kid (the first one). It's where Daniel has worked for days and days sanding Mr. Miyagi's deck, waxing his car, and painting his fence (up and down and side to side). He's tired, his arm hurts, and he can't figure out for the life of him how any of this applies to karate. When told to come back the next day for more work (training in Mr. Miyagi's eyes), Daniel loses it and decides to tell Mr. Miyagi just how he feels. It's then that Mr. Miyagi shows Daniel exactly how what he has learned over the last few days of seemingly mindless work has actually trained him in several key karate defense moves. "Paint the fence! Up and down! Side to side! Wax the car! Sand the floor!" The light goes on for Daniel then and he realizes for the first time the wisdom behind Mr. Miyagi's lessons.
In closing, we gave the kids some situations they may face at home or at school...disobeying their parents, being tempted to go along with the crowd, getting the last word in an argument. Then we asked them to think of Biblical wisdom that could help them figure out a solution to their problem...Ephesians 6:1, 1 Corinthians 10:13, James 3. These were easy examples of course, but we encouraged the kids that the wisdom on how to handle even life's biggest dilemmas can be found in God's Word. And the more of it they read and study and memorize, the more wisdom will be revealed to them.
