Caedmon with his homemade "Transformer."
A few days ago a friend of mine graced me with a ton of homeschooling material that she was no longer using. She invited me to come to her home and dig through all of it, and take whatever I pleased.
In the mix of wonderful books and science experiment materials, was a bag of Legos.
I was pretty excited to have found this bag, because Caedmon LOVES building with them. He will request specific sets for his birthday or Christmas and will build the entire thing within hours. He enjoys that part well enough, but his favorite part is creating his own designs with them.
He will spend hours designing aircraft carriers, or WW2 bi-planes, or houses. The list really goes on and on.
His grasp on the abilities that these little pieces of plastic have is absolutely unbelievable to me!
Once a project has been completed, he wants me to sit down so that he can show me each and every minute detail of what it does. We review colors and why they were chosen, which men do what job, what secret compartments are present and how those areas transform to look like simple sections of the overall design...all in an attempt to fool the poor Lego man who will inevitably end up in that secret jail or dungeon.
I have had to train myself to listen to all of the details, because it can take a looooong time for him to explain each part.
For me it's easy to say, "Wow Caedmon, that's a really cool boat," all the while missing the hidden mystery that he has so carefully placed within each design.
So when I came home from my friend's house with a bag of Lego's, I knew that he'd be beside himself with excitement.
And I was right.
Score one for Mom!
He said, "Man Mom, these are great! I've never seen this set before. These are going to be cool!"
The Legos were in ziploc baggies, separated out in some methodical way unknown to me. There were no directions, no box to explain what the set was.
Caedmon took a few of the pieces out of the bags and handled them. He looked intently at them, fingering each of the smaller more delicate pieces in an attempt to figure out what they were supposed to form as a whole.
He said a few times, "I've never seen Lego pieces like this before, Mom. These must be really old...like from when Dad was a kid!"
Ahem. "Little brat!"...thought I, his doting mother. OK, not really.
Just a few seconds later I heard him say, "MOM! These aren't Legos. They're Megablocks. They look like Legos, and they are compatible with them, but they aren't Legos. That's why I didn't recognize any of the pieces."
And I couldn't help myself. I had to grab the moment because it was just so teachable.
So applicable to life!
It was the perfect time to explain to the kids why we study the Word of God inductively.
I want my children to handle the Word like Caedmon handles Legos.
I want them to know it so well that when the counterfeit comes at them, looking good and talking a good talk, they'll be able to say, "That may look like Christianity. It may seem like Bible teaching, but when we get up close to it we see that it's not the real deal because it's not founded in a precept upon precept, contextual understanding of God's Word."
Caedmon knew those blocks weren't Legos, because he has spent countless hours of his life with the real deal.
Oh that we'll all be able to say the same thing about the handling of God's Word!
Are we in it enough to detect false teaching when it comes at us?
Do we depend on others to tell us what it means, or do we open it and spend time in it asking the Spirit of God to teach us...to take us deep into the mysteries of His Word?
Good life lessons from Legos, aren't they?
With love to you tonight,
Jes
