Who Is God?

I teach CCD ( I have the summer off, thank God - I am hoping I have a FastPass to Heaven for handling the 12 twelve-year old boys in my class, who are friends with each other) and I enjoy it, mostly because I teach with my good friend Susan, and we spend a lot of the hour laughing at the kids and their unique answers to questions.  (Ex: what is Advent?  Answer: it's a lot like Tylenol; you take it for a headache or a fever...)

Of course when we are not discussing Pee Wee hockey in CCD class,we discuss the nature of God.  If Susan and I do one thing for the boys, it is this: I hope we can leave them with a sense of not only the rules of respecting and observing God, but the adventure that is experiencing God.  I hope that they understand that when they are skating as fast as they can, or laughing until their sides hurt, or pointing their skis down a steep ski run and feeling the butterflies that come before flying, God is there, too.  And loving it for them, and with them.

There is a lot of language that comes with religion - blood of the lamb, being saved, and accepting Christ as your Savior.  These are all quite true, and familiar expressions of the experience of Christianity...but they make a lot of people itch, look at their watches and move on in conversation. 

Maybe if we started thinking about God, and introducing God by saying, particularly to kids: "You know when you saw that deer?  God was there with you."  Or, "you know when that kid on the other team got knocked down, got up, and scored the goal?  God was in that."  Many times we ditch our textbook in class, and talk this way, and it is here that we get the kids' attention (granted, not for long, but we do get it.)

I believe that God is with you in trouble, sorrow, and struggle.  But He is also just as present in excitement, adventure, and exuberance.  God is Good, in all it's forms.