On day Shane and Shelly climbed the hill behind the town to visit their friend Professor Ooops. It had been two years since they went on the adventures with the Professor on his bicycle/time machine. They had traveled back in time and visited many Bible stories and learned many things! Shane and Shelly were now 12 years old.
At the top of the hill, they paused to look at the Professor’s unusual house, they still could not believe that house! The house was made from three school buses that were welded together to make one long house! It was painted a red-orange color, and of course it had three doors (one in each bus part) and lots of windows on every side! The top of the buses had antennae’s and wires all over it, and there were six sets of wings attached to the side of the buses. There was something new on the house, there were two giant propellers on it, one on the roof like a helicopter’s rotor and another attached to the front of the house like an airplane propeller.
The Professor had just finished working on the propeller on roof of the house, he waved to the kids and said he would be right down. He stepped onto to the ladder leaning against the side of the house and lost his balance. The ladder began to fall away from the house taking the Professor with it, the Professor screamed, “Ooops!” The ladder did not fall to the ground, it got caught in the walnut tree beside the house! The tree shook from the impact of the ladder and walnuts began raining down onto the Professor! The Professor tried to protect his head from the walnuts, lost his grip on the ladder and began sliding down the ladder! He screamed “Ooops” every time he bounced on a rung of the ladder and every time a walnut hit him! The Professor landed at the bottom of the ladder in a pile of walnuts. He was not hurt except for bruises from the walnuts. An angry squirrel bounded down from the tree! He was mad because the Professor was lying on all the walnuts that squirrel wanted for his winter food! The squirrel jumped on the Professor tried to bite his nose! The Professor said, “Ooops!” and jumped up and ran into his house!
Shane and Shelly followed the Professor into his house and asked him,” Why are you putting propellers onto your house? What are you planning to do?” The Professor answered, “I think the propellers will make the house fly the way it is supposed to. I want to travel, see the world, and see if I can really find God for myself!” Shelly said, “But Professor, we went with you on all those wonderful adventures on the bicycle/time machine. We met all those people from the Bible and got to see their stories happen right before our eyes!” The Professor answered, “Yes, we had some wonderful adventures, but I never felt like I really got to know God. All those people in the Bible stories knew God, and you and Shane know God. I have never felt like I really met God. I always wonder, does He really care about a clumsy person like me? I want to meet God and know him personally. I want God to be my best friend!”
Shane said, “We never realized that you don’t really know God. We always thought that you had asked Jesus to forgive your sins and come into your life like we have. We love you Professor, and we want you to know God. It is summer vacation, so there is no school, we will talk with our parents tonight and ask them to let us travel with you. We want to help you to find a relationship and friendship with God!”
Early the next morning Shane and Shelly came up the hill to the Professor’s house. They both wore big backpacks with lots of clothes in them. The Professor had loaded a lot of food into his house. The Professor had piled all the boxes of food inside the house right by the front door. As Shane and Shelly came into the clearing, the Professor was carrying the last box of food into his house. He stumbled on a tree root and the box of food went flying! A gallon of milk flew into the walnut tree and the squirrel got covered in milk, and a dozen eggs went straight up in the air! The Professor looked up at the eggs and said, “Ooops!” Of course, when his mouth was open all the eggs came down and landed on his face! The Professor got a mouthful of raw eggs and eggshells!
Eventually they got the Professor cleaned up and they got everything into the house. The Professor started the motors (there were three of them, one in each bus section of the house) and the propellers began to turn. The Professor said, “I will speed up the propeller on the roof and it will lift us off the ground!” So, the Professor speeded up the roof propeller and the bus/house began to lift off the ground. There was a problem! The house did not lift evenly! The back end of the house came off the ground before the front end of the house! They went high into the air, but the front end of the house would not come up level with the back end of the house. The front end of the house was pointed down! Shane yelled, “There is too much weight in the front of the house! All those heavy boxes of groceries might make us crash! Come on Shelly, help me move them!” Shane and Shelly began sliding boxes of groceries to the back of the house, and the house became level! They had saved the flying house!
Shelly said, “This reminds me of your life Professor, you are out of balance!” The Professor asked, “What do you mean?” Shelly answered, “You have had a lot of adventures in Bible stories and have a lot of head-knowledge about God, but you do not know God personally! You have head-knowledge but no heart-knowledge.” The Professor said, “That makes a lot of sense to me! Let’s go and have some more adventures and I want to get heart-knowledge about God!”
The Professor speeded up the front motor and the front propeller began spinning fast. The flying house with the Professor, Shane, and Shelly flew away from their town and out into the world!
The Learning Corner:
Are you like Professor Ooops? He knows a lot about Bible stories and knows a lot of facts about God, but he really does not really know God. There are many people in this world like this, they know about God but do not have a relationship with God.
In the Bible in the Old Testament book of Isaiah chapter 29 verse 13 it says “The Lord says: “These people come near to Me with their mouth and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.”
In the Bible in the New Testament book of Matthew chapter 15 verse 8 Jesus says the same thing: “These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.”
God wants you to know Him! God sent His only Son (Jesus) to live on this earth, die to pay for all our sins, and then rise from the dead. God loves us that much! God loves you that much! Just knowing about Jesus is not enough, you must pray and tell Jesus that you believe in Him and tell Him that you are a sinner (this means that you have done things that God says are wrong) and want to leave your sins and follow Him. Ask Jesus to forgive your sins, He will! This begins your friendship with God!
I hope that you have accepted Jesus as your Savior, if you have then you are way ahead of the Professor. He still does not understand how important it is to simply believe in Jesus, repent of your sins, and ask for forgiveness. We will be joining the Professor as he goes on an adventure to find how to change his head-knowledge about God into heart-knowledge and have a real relationship with God. No matter where you are at in your journey with God, there is always more to learn. Let’s learn together!