Open today’s lesson by discussing with your students the things that they fear the most and how this shapes their actions.
- What is your greatest fear? (Give your students a moment to think about this question before allowing a few to respond.)
A greatest fear is something that looks different for each one of us depending upon our individual experiences, but there is one thing that remains the same for all people: the feeling. It’s the thing that every time you think about, you feel sick, scared—you’d do pretty much anything to avoid it.
We like to think that these fears only exist in nightmares—that even though we’ve heard stories of them occurring, there’s no way it could actually happen to us. But people all over the world are at risk of having their greatest fears happen every day
In October of last year, the terrorist group Boko Haram launched another attack on Nigerian citizens. Their attacks often target churches and schools in particular. This particular attack targeted mourners returning from the burial of victims who had died from an earlier terror attack. 17 people were killed from this attack alone. BBC News estimates that up to 2 million Nigerian citizens have been displaced since 2009 because of these attacks
- Although Boko Haram hasn’t launched any attacks on the US, what do you think you would do in a similar situation? (Instruct your students that they do not need to respond aloud, but rather that they should think about this idea for a few moments.)
It’s hard to know how we’d react in this position. We can hope that we would step up to help the affected people, even if it put our lives at risk. Whether it makes national headlines or not, every single day, people are answering the call to do difficult things, but that doesn’t make it any less scary or difficult.
Being called to do challenging things is just a part of living a Christian life. Today, we’ll see how people just like us responded when God called them to do difficult things. Let’s take a look.
