I am blessed to get to be a part of my church’s children ministry and one way I help out is by teaching what we call children’s moment one, sometimes two, Sundays per month.
Children’s moment is a short children’s sermon during church before the kids leave the sanctuary for children’s church.
I don’t know if the kids are remembering a single word I say but it is in these few short minutes that God has delivered some of the most powerful messages to me!
One such message happened last month with the “Onion Christian” message.
Now, mind you, very few of these messages are original (thank you Pinterest)! This was a message I got from a book of object lessons I’ve been sharing but God used it to speak to me very clearly.
So you peel an onion (yes, also a pungent message) and show the children that the onion looks the same through and through. No matter his far you peel, the onion will get smaller, but each inner layer will look exactly the same as the outer layer.
And the idea is that we, as Christ followers, are to look the same on the inside as we do on the outside.
This was particularly convicting because I struggle with being judgmental. I absolutely hate to admit it but it definitely is a natural tendency I’ve battled against for years.
So God used this message to remind me of those old familiar verses Matthew wrote:
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? Matthew 7:1-3
Especially with so many non believers looking at us as hypocrites and bigots and God knows what else, we need to be sure to live this principle out daily! We do not have a large margin for error anymore! We conservative Christians are no longer the norm. We have to stand out for our good qualities, not our bad. We have to let Him smooth our sharp edges so we can shine Jesus in our ever darkening world.
I ALMOST wish the smell of that peeled onion would have stayed on my hands longer than that day because I want to be constantly reminded to be an Onion Christian; loving everyone the same in my thoughts, heart and prayers as I do in my words and actions. But smelling like onions indefinitely doesn’t sound very appealing so I’ll just settle for these sweet reminders from my Dad.
Because I am just as much a child as those sweet faces looking up at me during children’s moment. I am re-learning to live, just like they are learning, every day. Thank God for that! I get a new chance today and so do you.
Is there something or someone you’ve been struggling with lately? Do you need to look at your inner layers like I did? Are those inner layers looking the same as the outer layers or do you maybe need to peel the onion to open up your inner layer to God so you can do some cleaning together? But what it really comes down to is:
“Will you be an Onion Christian today???”
God bless,
Katie