Proverbs, Ecclesiastes

Lesson number one: Trust, Don't Lean from Proverbs three through four.

Our truth here, the destination that the entire lesson points to.

When our students leave our classrooms, this is what we wanna have landed in their heads and in their hearts.

If I trust God's wisdom to guide my choices, instead of relying on my own, then He will direct my path toward greater light.

To help give you some fire in the bones here, I feel this may be one of the most important fundamental principles of living as a disciple of Christ, and that's the idea of trust, trusting God over ourselves, trusting God over the wisdom of the world.

Our own reasoning may feel convincing at times, and the world may speak with great confidence and eloquence about what it feels is right or will make us happy or successful.

Proverbs chapters three through four invites us to recognize the limits of our mortal perspective and turn to a being of infinite light and knowledge for guidance.

For an icebreaker, if possible, you could display a climbing rope, carabiner, a harness, or even just a photograph of somebody rappelling.

You could then ask if anyone has ever been rappelling before.

And I imagine that in most classes, you're gonna have at least some who have had that experience.

You can invite them to share what that experience was like.

And, you know, I've been taking people rappelling for years, and almost universally, that first experience is an intimidating one.

I mean, there comes that moment when you have to just trust the person who's instructing you and trust the gear.

And so you might say something like, "Imagine standing at the top of a cliff preparing to rappel for the first time.

The person guiding you tells you to turn around, step backward towards the edge, lean away from the rock, and place your weight, and in a way, your life, into the rope.

And almost everything inside you is screaming, 'This doesn't feel right.' Your instinct tells you to cling to the wall, to keep your weight on your own two feet.

But the guide, the guide understands that the rope, the anchor, the harness, and the entire system in a way that, that you don't.

At some point, you have to decide whether you will trust." And ask, "At what moment does confidence in the rope or guide actually become trust?" The likely answer, when the person is willing to place their weight on it.

That's the moment of trust [laughs].

Now, be careful not to let that illustration get away from you.

Uh, we don't wanna dwell too much on this portion of the lesson and end up having, uh, five different people describing their first rappelling experience.

So move with purpose.

Share the illustration briefly, have one person share their experience, and then transition to the lesson by saying something like this: "That's the image I'd like you to keep in mind as we read a few verses from Proverbs three and four.

Trust becomes real when we're willing to act, place our weight on it.

Now, rappelling may not be the place where you struggle with trust, but I'm guessing that you've probably felt a similar conflict in other parts of your life.