Sometimes God gives us instructions that just don’t make sense to us. We don’t understand why He would ask us to do something and there are even times when we’d be happy to offer God alternative suggestions! 😉
But the Bible says that God’s Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path (Psalm 119:105). And sometimes we might not understand God’s ways, because His ways are not our ways, they are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9).
So we don’t always need to see what’s at the end of the journey, we only need God to lead us to the next step. And then after we have obeyed that next step, He can lead us to the next step, and so on. Our only job is to obey and follow His lead, even if we can’t see where He’s leading us.
And this object lesson is to help teach this abstract concept of letting God’s Word guide our steps, even when we don’t understand it.
Supplies Needed:
- Flashlight
- Aluminum foil
- Bowl of some kind of treat or reward (whatever your child loves best)
- A pitch black room (either do this at night or with blackout curtains or a very dark blanket)
Object Lesson Setup Instructions:
First gather up your supplies. The treat can be whatever your child would like. It’s meant to be the reward at the end of the journey.
For the flashlight, you will need a regular flashlight and not just the flashlight on your phone. The one in this picture ended up being dead and I tried using my phone, but the light wasn’t direct enough to create a clear “circle of light” that would make this object lesson easier, it sort of dispersed the light too much to work right for this. So don’t use your phone flashlight, definitely use a regular old flashlight that can create a beam or circle of light on the floor.
Assemble the aluminum foil on top of the bowl with the prize in it. The aluminum foil is used to help reflect the light and make it “shine” once you reach the end of the journey.
Next you’ll need to prepare a room to do this in. The bigger the space, the better. However, we have a pretty small house and so we just had to use my son’s bedroom, I just cleared off the floor to remove all obstacles and things that he could trip on.
Since we were doing this during the day, I used several big heavy fleece blankets to cover up his window so it wouldn’t let any light in once we turned off the lights and shut the door to do the lesson.
At this point you can even add the free printable stepping stones (you can grab them below) to help with the journey. I didn’t think of doing that until after we did the lesson so I didn’t use them, but I’d love to go back and do it again (with the right flashlight and) with the stepping stones to see how it goes.
Now place the reward bowl at the end of the journey you’ll make, wherever that will be. For us, the end (or top rather) of his bed would be the perfect place.
Object Lesson Activity Instructions:
First turn off all the lights and then bring your child into the room, holding their hand so they wait next to you for further instruction. Make sure it’s super dark, the darker it is, the better the object lesson will work.
Before you start, tell your child that just like how it’s so dark in this room, it can also be so hard to see what we should do in our lives. We can’t always see what’s ahead and it can be hard to know what to do and what’s right and wrong.
Turn on your flashlight and shine it a few steps ahead. Tell them to step into the beam of light but no further.
After they do tell them that just like this flashlight God gave us something very special to help lead us in our lives, even when it’s hard to know what the right thing to do is. Ask them if they know what that thing is. Tell them that it’s The Bible.
Shine your flashlight a couple more steps ahead and instruct them to, again step into the beam of light but no further. God gave us the Bible to lead us to where we need to go. Even if we can’t see what’s ahead of us, we can trust that God is leading us down a path that is good. But we have to follow His instructions to get there.
Continue to shine your flashlight ahead, a few steps at a time. Each time they walk into the next beam of let tell them about how when we aren’t sure what to do, we can pray and read our Bible to find out what God wants us to do. We don’t have to see where the path ends to obey God. In fact, God wants us to trust in Him with all our hearts, no matter what.
Once they reach the prize, shine your flashlight on the prize so that it shines. Point to it and tell them to open it up and see what it is. As they do, tell them that just like how something good was at the end of this path, God has good things planned for us too. We don’t always know what they are, but we can trust that God is leading us down a path that is good for us and when we obey Him, He will lead us to good things.
While your child enjoys their prize, bring out your Bible and reiterate all of the points you made while doing the object lesson. Drive home the point that God’s Word, the Bible instructs us in where to go. And just because we can’t see where God is leading us at the moment, we can trust in Him and lean into His guiding every step of the way.
I hope you and your child enjoy this object lesson and that you have a lot of fun doing it. This lesson was adapted from the one found here.
Want to teach your children more about obedience to God?
If you liked this Bible object lesson, then you’ll love my Sin Separates Us From God Balloon Object Lesson too! Just fill out the form below and I’ll send you a free printable object lesson booklet for it.
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