Give Me a Number, Any Number | Nothing is Random with God

What you need:

• A whiteboard, chalk board, big piece of paper or anything else big enough to write on that the whole class can see
• An appropriate writing instrument to match the surface you chose. Make sure it is bold and dark enough to be seen by everyone.
• LOTS OF TIME AND PATIENCE – for this lesson you have to memorize the placement of 25 numbers in a grid ALTHOUGH there is a pattern that you can discern once you start.

About the lesson:

This lesson is really neat but I will not sugar-coat it… it requires quite a bit of work ahead of time. You have to memorize some numbers in a grid and, if you are anything like me, just when you think you have it all done, you do it live (at home to someone forgiving) and suddenly your mind goes blank. Just perform it for as many people as you can before you do it for real in front of your class as this will prepare you for everything you will encounter. This lesson is worth the effort… really it is.

Lesson:

Today I am going to need you all to call out some numbers for me.  Call out ANY number between 1 and 25 in any order whatsoever and we are going to plop it down in this grid thingy I have here.  Just randomly call out numbers but we cannot use any of them more than once.

Now sometimes I things feel like they happened to us at random. That God really doesn’t seem to care what happens to us. That we are at the mercy of fate. But the Bible says that all things work together for good to them that love God, that are the called according to his purpose. Nothing is really random.

So, someone call out a number for me. Any number between 1 and 25.

WHATEVER NUMBER THEY CALL OUT WRITE DOWN THE GRID IN THE EXACT SPOT THAT IT IS SUPPOSED TO GO. TRY TO DO THIS CASUALLY AS IF YOU ARE RANDOMLY WRITING IT SOMEWHERE. FEEL FREE TO WASTE TIME IF YOU CAN’T REMEMBER IMMEDIATELY BY ASKING THE KIDS QUESTIONS ABOUT WHERE YOU SHOULD PUT IT.

Give me another number now… come on, give them all to me.

ONE BY ONE THE KIDS WILL GIVE YOU ALL OF THE NUMBERS. FILL IN YOUR GRID CAREFULLY UNTIL EVERY BOX IS FULL.

So now we have all of our boxes full and all the numbers chosen. All of that happened awfully quick and how are we supposed to cope with all these different things that occur in our lives? All these things happened at random right?

No! Nothing is random with God. Now today, come and ask you to pull out a calculator. I know we don’t normally use cell phones in class but today is the exception. If you don’t have one, no problem, I am going to use mine to add up these numbers.

Someone pick either a column or a row and let’s add it up.

WALK THEM THROUGH THE PROCESS OF PICKING A ROW OR COLUMN. WHEN THEY DO, CAREFULLY SHOW THEM HOW YOU ARE ADDING UP EACH NUMBER IN THE COLUMN/ROW SO THEY KNOW YOU ARE NOT CHEATING. HAVING SOMEONE ELSE ADD THEM UP FOR YOU IS EVEN BETTER.

Ok, so what did that equal? 65 right… perfect. Now let’s do another row or column

ADD UP EACH ROW OR COLUMN UNTIL YOU HAVE ADDED THEM ALL UP – YOU CAN EVEN ADD UP THE DIAGONALS AND THEY WILL ALL EQUAL 65!

WHAT?! How did that happen? They all equal the same thing!? That is CRAZY! Or is it? Didn’t we start out this lesson by saying that nothing is random with God? When you put your life in His hands, when you trust Him completely and follow His will, do your best to live for Him you will find that ALL THINGS work together for your good!

God is just so good and He is completely in control.