Awesome (Sur)pr(a)ise

Text: Isaiah 55:10–13

I love it when I get surprised by God. (Okay, sometime I don’t love it in the moment, but I’ve gotten better at loving it) I especially love it when I’m in the middle of worship and I get surprised, because I’m generally distracted from the moment by what is going to happen next and a surprise makes me stop and be reminded of really important things: the present moment.  This Sunday, I got one of God’s surprises through the response of a very young girl in a particularly fine mood (and I really loved it, right then).

This Sunday, for the children’s time, I asked the kids if they had ever heard a tree clap its hands (like in Isaiah).  They responded immediately with quite a few incredulous noes.  I said, “Really?!?” and then I said that I had seen trees clap their hands.  Of course, the kids didn’t believe me.  Trees don’t even have hands after all, how in the world could they possibly clap them?  Then I asked them if maybe they’d ever seen the wind moving through the leaves of a tree and heard the sound of the rustling leaves.  I asked if those leaves sometimes sounded like clapping hands.  Together, we all softly clapped our hands, as did everyone else in the congregation.  It was great.  It even kind of sounded like trees rustling in the wind!

The kids loved the clapping 🙂

I told the kids that when the trees were clapping their hands that they were praising God and that all the creation praises God.  I told them that the next time they heard the leaves rustling in the wind that they should think about how amazing it is that even a tree can praise God.  Then this happened: 

Ah, from trees clapping and mountains singing and children bursting with God’s yes …  Hallelujah!