2 Feet, 6 Feet, Many, Many, Many Feet!

Children’s Page

2 Feet, 6 Feet, Many, Many, Many Feet!

Joshua 3 - 4

 

One feet…two feet….red feet …. blue feet … orange feet … green feet … old feet … new feet!  

This one has a little star. This one has a little scar.  Say!  What a lot of feet there are!

Yes, some are red. And some are blue.  Some are old and some are new. …

Here are some that like to run. They run for fun in the hot, hot sun.

Oh me! Oh my!  Oh me!  Oh my!  What a lot of funny things go by!

Some have two feet and some have four. Some have six feet and some have more.

Where do they come from? I can’t say. But I bet they have come a long, long way.

We see them come.  We see them go. Some are fast and some are slow.

Some are short and some have toes!  Not one of them is like another!

Don’t ask us why! Go ask your mother!                 -- One Feet, Two Feet, Red Feet, Blue Feet with apologies to Dr. Seuss

God has brought His people out of Egypt and all the way across the desert. Now they are ready to go into the land God promised to Abraham many, many, many years before. God promised to give them every single piece of ground their feet touched. There were at least several million people following God. That’s a lot of feet!

Walking into the land God was giving them wasn’t like taking a walk down the street. There were bad people in this land. There were scary giants! God told His people and especially Joshua, Be strong and courageous!   DO NOT BE AFRAID!  I am with you every step you take!

Joshua and all the people came to the bank of the Jordan River. It was spring, and the river was flooded. It might have looked like they’d have to wait a long time to go across, but God had a plan. God told Joshua what to do, and Joshua told the others.

God told Joshua to tell the priests carrying the Ark of God to step into the water. The Bible says that as soon as their feet touched the water the water in the river started to stand up in a heap upriver away at a town called Adam. The priests carrying the Ark of God were to walk half-way across and then stop and stand there holding the Ark while all the people walked by and across to the other side of the Jordan River. The Bible says the river bottom dried up right away so their feet didn’t even get wet. WOW! That’s really awesome, isn’t it?

So, the first thing the people had to do is FOLLOW THE ARK OF GOD! When you see the Ark of God start moving, follow it!

Since the priests carrying the Ark of God were to stop and stand half-way across, God told Joshua to tell the people to KEEP THE DISTANCE!  The Ark of God was the place where God’s presence was in the tent church God told them to make. It was important to give God great respect! So, the people were told not to go up and touch the Ark.
 

The priests carried the Ark of God right to the center of the riverbed. Then they stopped and just stood there until every single person, sheep, cow, and whatever else had crossed over to the other side of the river.  All of God's people walked right across the Jordan to the other side and didn’t even get their feet wet!

ALL the people knew that God was with them. They knew God had promised to never, ever, ever leave them!  Remember that the waters were heaped up at the town of Adam.  Well, they stayed in that heap as long as God said so!

This is a picture some children colored. Then they pasted another picture of the priests in their white robes carrying the Ark of God on top of the first picture. Notice the priests couldn’t touch the Ark of God either. They carried it on poles on their shoulders. The Ark of God was gold, but it had a special cover to keep it clean when they were moving it from one place to another.

 After all the people crossed over, then the priests carried the Ark of God to the other side. Joshua told 12 strong men to gather stones and put them down in the river bed where they crossed as a reminder of what a wonderful thing God did that day for His people!  These are memory stones!  Joshua told the people, When your children see the stones in the water and ask you what they are, be sure to tell them they are memory stones!   God did a wonderful thing for His people that day. He wanted them to remember what happened, and that God had done a miracle for them! 

Joshua 4:24 says, Yes, God, your God, dried up the Jordan’s waters for you until you had crossed, just as God, your God, did at the Red Sea, which had dried up before us until we had crossed. This was so that everybody on earth would recognize how strong God’s rescuing hand is and so that you would hold God in solemn reverence always!

You could take a stone and write a verse or something about God that you want to remember on it. Joshua 4:24 is a great verse to be on a stone of remembrance! 

He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.

Use the crayons to draw a picture of the Jordan River, the Ark of God, the four priests, and all the people.

Put yourself in the picture if you want to. Be sure to draw some stones of remembrance!
©Ann Holmes, 2/2014  All Rights Reserved.