One of the joys of being on sabbatical leave is that I can visit other churches. I have been spreading myself around: making impromptu visits to local churches. Last Sunday I went to another church and had a lovely time. I did, however, have to suppress an attack of the giggles.

The lady who was leading the children’s talk / all age time / bit people remember was using an illustration of how she uses her binoculars to look at the stars at night. She got some children to look through the binoculars and had placed some people at the back who occasionally put up some stars on sticks. The point was that we can’t always see what we are looking for first time and have to keep looking, and praying is like that – we don’t always see the answer first time.

What got me giggling was that the Minister’s son (why is it always the Minister’s son?) was trying to get his toy in the line of sight of the girls who were looking through the binoculars. He was stretching as far as he could to get the toy in front of them. Those attempts were funny, but what almost had me laughing out loud was that his toy was a toy space shuttle! How did he know to bring that toy? Genius!

And what can we learn from this?

Perhaps God was having a laugh with us. Laughter is an underused gift from God: Martin Luther wrote: “If you are not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don’t want to go there.”

OR

Children have the ability to upstage anyone.

Be blessed, be a blessing.