VBS: God's Power at Work

“I wanna walk, I wanna talk, I wanna live in Your power. I wanna pray, I wanna stay, I wanna move in Your power.”
Approximately 2.5 million kids will be singing these words this summer in Amazing Wonders Aviation™ VBS, but will they and the adults leading the songs personally understand the reality of God’s power?
As VBS leaders across the Nation prepare for VBS 2012, we have an opportunity to lead kids, teens, and adults on an adventure to not only know about, but to personally encounter God’s awesome power. Power that is exhibited over nature, circumstances, sin, death, and our individual lives.
Psalm 147:5, Amazing Wonders Aviation VBS theme Scripture, celebrates and proclaims, “Our Lord is great, vast in power; His understanding is infinite.”
This proclamation of vast power is the centerpiece of another song of praise – one that has been sung through the centuries commemorating God’s restoration of Jerusalem. After 70 years in exile – 70 years of weeping and despair – the enslaved and scattered people of Israel are allowed to return to their beloved homeland. Not only have the people experienced the restoration of their cherished homeland, but the people themselves have experienced healing and restoration as well.
Can’t you picture it? The song begins softly – sung by only one or two – but quickly increases in volume as the transformed, those who were once brokenhearted and wounded (verse 3), brush away the tears and lift their unified voices in celebration of their restored lives, families, and Nation.
Much like the day of Psalm 147, we are surrounded by the brokenhearted and wounded. We live in families, communities, a Nation, and even churches in need of restoration. We are surrounded by spiritual exiles longing to be restored through a personal encounter with an awesome God and His amazing power.
“I wanna walk, I wanna talk, I wanna live in Your power. I wanna pray, I wanna stay, I wanna move in Your power.”
Vacation Bible School 2012 is our opportunity to go to the brokenhearted and wounded and proclaim restoration. But it must be done in God’s power and not our own. Before we can proclaim the amazing power of an awesome God we must have first experienced it. We only walk, talk, live, pray, stay, and move in God’s power when we first recognize our need for His power and then relinquish our own power to His.
The Apostle Paul recognized not only the need for God’s power in his life, but in this lives of all believers. “For this reason I (Paul) bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. I pray that He may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, and that the Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith.” (Ephesians 3:14-17a HCSB)
As we prepare for VBS 2012 we too need “to be strengthened with power through His Spirit.” Before we become too consumed with the crafts, music, decorations, and fun of VBS, which are all extremely vital to the experience, we need to follow Paul’s example and bow our knees before the Father. First, bow our knees seeking God’s power in our own lives, and then bowing our knees on behalf of our VBS coworkers and leadership.
Join me in asking for God’s power to be revealed and experienced in awesome and amazing ways this summer. May we do more than just tell the prescribed Bible stories that we read moments before the kids arrive. May we personally know – experience – God’s power and teach from the overflow of His power working in our own lives.
“Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think—according to the power that works in you—to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21 HCSB)
This article was originally written for the Tennessee Baptist and Reflector.