God Knows Best

Can you count to ten?  Let's count together.  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.  Good!  Now let's see who knows how to count in Spanish. Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho nueve, diez.  It's fun to learn another language.  The words sound funny to us at first until we learn what they mean.  Uno means one, dos means two, and tres means three.  Uno, dos, tres.  See?  Why don't we all speak the same language?  The Bible explains what happened a long time ago.  People used to speak all the same language. They all had the same words. They all had the same words for counting.  They all said mommy and daddy the same way.  They could understand each other no matter what they said.  They found a big place, a place big and wide with enough room for everybody and decided to make a city there. They made plans together and nobody fought about it.  They all wanted to do the same thing.  They decided to make bricks out of clay and build a big tower. They said, "We can make a tower that reaches up to the sky! Then we will be famous. Everyone will think we are the best. If we all stick together we can do amazing things!" That is what they said.  Does that sound like a good plan?  Well, let's think about it.  If you make a tower with blocks and your dad says - "Good job, Jacob," or "That's good Ella," then you feel good about yourself, don't you?  But what if you and your friends could make a tower as big as your house?  You might think you could do everything yourself. You might think that you were so smart, and so strong and so good at making towers that you don't need anyone else.  You could make big buildings, and be on TV and be the boss of everybody, and everyone would think that you were the best.  But really God is the best. So God saw what the people were doing, and thought, "If they stay together and make big towers, they will forget me.  They are finding a way to get right up into heaven without me. So, God wanted to mess up their plans a little, so they would need him and not just do everything without him. God is really smart.  And he has a lot of power. So he gave the command - he said it and it happened - that different people would speak different languages.  The people started talking to each other and now some of them spoke English, some Spanish, some French, some Italian, and some Chinese. They couldn't understand what the other people were saying!  So they stopped building their city, and started going in different directions.  People that could understand each other stayed together and made their own place, and other people lived somewhere else.  God knows what's best for us.  Sometimes we have ideas that are not good for us. We might think, I'm going to be a great fireman someday.  But God knows you are not very careful and you might get burned. If God wants you to be a teacher, then he will turn your head that way and show you what to do. He might make you really love the alphabet, so that you would want to teach other people the alphabet.  We need to pay attention to God's plans for us and not get carried away with our own ideas.  God knows what's best for us.