Drawing Proverbs

May 16th, 2014

drawing-proverbs

A fun way to gain wisdom is drawing Proverbs. These illustrations can be really fun, since many Proverbs contain pithy statements that have two opposites. The righteous and the wicked are compared. What other antithetical character qualities are compared?

  • The diligent vs. the slothful
  • The wise vs. fools
  • Gentleness vs. anger
  • Cheerfulness vs. a broken spirit
  • Humility vs. pride
  • The rich vs. the poor
  • Restraining speech vs. gossip
  • The Proverbs 31 woman vs. the constant dripping of a quarrelsome wife

Go ahead and choose a fun Proverb from the Bible, and try to illustrate it. An easy way to do this is to divide the paper in half, drawing the first part of the verse on the first half, and the second part in the second half.

The illustration at the top of the page is: “Better is a dish of vegetables where love is, than a fattened ox and hatred with it.” Proverbs 15:17 NASB  My daughter drew a table with vegetables on it, where everyone was happy. Then she drew another table with meat, where everyone was angry at each other.

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This next picture has four boxes. My son illustrated actions and their consequences. You can discuss consequences of actions with your kids. Proverbs 10:4 says “Poor is he who works with a negligent hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.” (NASB) First a lazy man is sleeping, and he has empty pockets. Another man works hard scrubbing the floor, and he has lots of money.

drawing-proverbs-3The third illustrated Proverb is found in Proverbs 15:28: “The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things.” A heart is pictured, looking like he is pondering. Then a mouth pours out evil things.

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This last illustrated Proverb is about getting counsel from wise people before making big decisions. “Where there is no guidance, the people fall, but in an abundance of counselors there is victory.” Proverbs 11:14 NASB  My son drew a cliff with a guy going off the cliff because he had no good advice from anyone. In the second picture, the man is getting advice and avoids falling over the cliff.

If you enjoyed this Drawing Proverbs activity, you will love the huge Bible section inside the Unit Study Treasure Vault!

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Posted in Bible | 5 Comments »

Alien Spaceship Cake

May 12th, 2014

alien-spaceship-cakeMy 8-year-old son invented this alien spaceship cake for a Cub Scout cake contest years ago. He won first place! Here is the story of how this cake was made:

My son wanted to make a cake in the shape of the planet Saturn. We brainstormed how we could possibly do this, when I thought of baking half the cake in a glass Pyrex bowl. This would be the round top part of the planet, and a round cake would be the rings of Saturn. We baked the cakes and placed them into the fridge overnight before frosting.

The next day when we opened the fridge, my son saw the cake and thought it looked like an alien spaceship! So he decided to make an alien spaceship cake instead of the planet Saturn.

He frosted the bottom cake purple and the top part yellow. He made a light blue front window, which he outlined with black icing gel. Then he went to town adding candy embellishments. We used gum drops, Life Savers, M&M’s, and other random candy. My son wanted a piece of green licorice to outline the top of the ship. He outlined several lines on the bottom part of the ship with black icing gel. He stuck in pretzels, and he shoved gum drops on the top of each pretzel. Two chocolate cookies were placed at the back, where the motor would be. His work of art was finished.

No wonder he won first place! This alien spaceship cake turned out fabulous!

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Posted in Cooking and Baking | 1 Comment »

Does Praying Boldly Imply Presumption?

May 9th, 2014

praying-boldly

“And this is the boldness which we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us:  and if we know that He heareth us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the the petitions which we have asked of Him.” – 1 John 5:14,15 (ASV)

The Mightiest Prayer Warrior I Ever Met

The mightiest prayer warrior I ever met was a man from my church that prayed boldly. We were at a prayer meeting, and the first time I heard him pray, I was blown away. It was like a spiritual sonic boom. I opened my eyes and turned around and looked at who on earth had the audacity to pray so boldly that he knew that God would answer him.

Does Praying Boldly Imply Presumption?

I always thought that praying boldly was somewhat presumptuous, saying that God had to do what you were saying. How ridiculous to think that we could boss around the God of the universe. It was up to God whether He would answer us in the negative. Most people refer to answered prayer as those requests that get an affirmative answer. But God is God, and He can do whatever He wishes.

How Exactly Does a Person Pray Boldly?

After hearing this man pray, I was amazed at his Scriptural accuracy in how he knew the heart of God and prayed according to the heart of God. He knew certain commands in Scripture that were God’s will, and so he stated them matter-of-factly, and then asked God to do it. God, follow through on what You have said. That’s what he was saying.

Teach Me to Pray Boldly

A few weeks ago I was fasting in prayer for a woman’s marriage, and I called my best friend to help me get through the afternoon slump, which is the hardest time of fasting for me. She took up the challenge and prayed over the phone. She heard the prayer requests, and she prayed boldly that God would convict this man’s heart directly. “Rebuke him of his sin, Lord, because that is Your will. Help him to repent and turn and do what he ought to do in his marriage.”

Guess what? A miracle happened! It was like scales dropped from this man’s eyes, and he asked for forgiveness for how he treated his wife. This just happened suddenly as he was directly rebuked by the Lord in his spirit, just as my friend’s bold prayer had stated.

I wanted to cheer. My spirit cheered when my friend prayed with boldness for his repentance. And my heart cheered when God fulfilled my friend’s prayer the next day. I asked my friend how she learned to pray so boldly, and could she teach me?

She said that the person in charge of the prison ministry prayed like that, and she just loved it, so she started praying boldly, too! She and I laughed at the audacity to hold God to His Word and know that He will answer because it is according to His will.

What if the Prayer is Not God’s Will?

All of us want our own will to be done, and not until we understand the heart of God can we align our will to His to ask what He would want us to ask. And when we do, He always answers us. We have the conviction that God will answer because of who He is. So we can boldly state it as so. That’s what’s so liberating about this kind of prayer.

There are other kinds of prayer where we don’t know the will of God. God doesn’t want every sickness healed instantly, or He would do so. He allows sickness to draw us closer to Himself, and what if the presence of sickness in our lives is keeping us from sinning? What if eternal qualities are being forged that are worth more than any amount of money? I would rather pray that God would cause the sick person to cling to Christ and be strengthened by His presence, because for sure that’s the will of God. You see the difference?

And yes, we can ask that someone be healed in the same way Jesus asked if the cup could pass from Him. It was not sin for Jesus to pray something that wasn’t ultimately the will of God the Father, because Jesus was willing to endure the answer to prayer that was harder, to go to the cross and bear the sin of the world. In the same way, if we are willing for God to answer in His timing and in the way God wants to do it, we will experience joy in God’s presence in the midst of difficulty.

Here is the audio that explains how to pray boldly:

To follow my prayer posts, like my Prayer Page.

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Solar System Cake

May 5th, 2014

solar-system-cake

We finished our study of outer space by making this cool Solar System cake! One night at dinner I was brainstorming with the kids how to make a cake look like the sun and the planets. I was thinking I would do a rectangular cake with dark blue icing and draw the sun and planets with icing gel.

But dark blue frosting is very hard to make because icing starts white. And it seems like a lot of work to draw the sun and planets with frosting, especially if your hands start trembling because you want to make it perfect.

I could use candies for the different planets instead of drawing them, choosing the correct colors and sizes for the candy for each planet.

Suddenly a different idea it hit me: Bake one cake in a circle pan, and frost it yellow. Then make the planets cupcakes! “Brilliant!” I shouted at the dinner table, beginning to sing the Halleluyah chorus. The kids cheered, laughing hysterically at my singing. Of course the kids approved, since making cake means eating cake.

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I cut a piece of cardboard slightly larger than the circle cake, taping foil on it, before plopping the cake down on it. After the cake cooled, we frosted it yellow. I placed gold-wrapped Rolo candies around the edge to make the sun fancy, but you could use any yellow candy.

I mixed different colors of icing, and I frosted the cupcakes according to the color of the planets. I frosted Mercury with chocolate frosting instead of trying to make gray frosting. (Yuck! Who would want to eat that?) The Earth cupcake was first frosted with blue, then green blobs for the continents. Jupiter was yellow with swirls of red. Saturn was yellow, and I stabbed a pink pipe cleaner as a ring around it. You could also use licorice.

I placed the Solar System cake on a dark blue sheet that I threw on the table, and I used white candy sprinkles for space dust. Don’t you just love it?

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Posted in Science | 6 Comments »

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