The Professor, Shane, and Shelly were on their way to adventures in the flying bus! The Professor was hoping to find God! He knew a lot about God but did not know God personally. This adventure is the Professor’s Quest for God!
The Professor wrote on the wall of the flying bus the things that he has learned. So far, the Professor has learned:
- The beauty of nature points people to God. Nature so is awesome it just could not happen by chance, God created it.
- God has a plan for everything and everyone. God has a time for everything in His plan.
- God is kind. He shows His kindness to all people. No one deserves God’s kindness because we are all sinners. God’s greatest kindness was sending His Son Jesus to die on the cross to pay for our sins.
- God is just. Every sin must be punished. Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead to pay for all the sins ever committed. We must choose to accept Jesus’ payment for our sins or pay for our sins ourselves by being punished in the lake of fire forever.
- God pays attention to every detail. He knows every detail of your life and He loves and cares for you.
- God is faithful all the time. He will never leave you or give up on you. Even the best people are unfaithful some of the time.
- God’s wisdom is not like the wisdom of the world. The world says, ‘Put yourself first, go after fame, fortune, and things.’ God’s wisdom says, ‘Fear (greatly respect) God first, and your attitude and thoughts should be about helping others’.
- God has the greatest power in the whole universe. He made the universe and everything in it, and God’s power keeps the whole universe going. But God does not use His great power to crush us, He speaks gently to us with love.
The Professor, Shane, Shelly, and their friend Josiah had escaped from the powerful storm and had landed the flying bus on an island with a mountain in the middle of it. The tall mountain sheltered them from the rest of the storm, and they were safe! By the next morning, the storm was over, and Shane said, “Let’s explore this island before we leave, maybe we will have an adventure and the Professor will learn more in his quest for God!” This seemed like a good idea, so they locked up the flying bus and headed down a trail through the forest. They were kind of surprised to find such a nice trail on the island, Shelly said, “I wonder who made this trail, they must have worked very hard to make it and take care of it. It is wide and smooth and there are no rocks or tree roots on the trail, no one has to worry about tripping and falling.” Just then the Professor managed to trip on his own shoestrings and fell flat on his face! As he was falling, he bumped into Shelly and she bumped into a small tree. The small tree shook and a wasp next in the tree fell to the ground. The Professor said, “Ooops!” Josiah yelled, “Quick, everyone run to that pond and jump in before the wasps attack us!” Shane grabbed the Professor’s arm and yanked him up off the ground and they all ran to the pond and jumped in! They all stayed under water and only came up when they needed a breath, then went under water again. About ten minutes later the wasps had gone away and they were able to get out of the pond. They started down the trail again after the Professor tied his shoes!
Around a curve in the trail, they found a curious thing; it was a speaker sitting in the forest. They stopped to look at the speaker and Shelly was just saying, “I wonder what this is doing in the forest?” when it happened…. A voice yelled over the speaker, “Green light! Run!” Josiah, Shane, Shelly, and the Professor began running down the trail as fast as they could. Just when they felt they could not run any further, they came to another speaker and the voice yelled, “Red light! Stop!” They all stopped as quick as they could, the Professor was at the end of the line and he could not stop fast enough, he ran into the rest of them, and they all fell down! The Professor said, “Ooops!” They picked themselves up off the ground and were just getting their breath back when the voice yelled over the speaker, “Green light! Run!” So, they began running again! When they came to the next speaker the voice yelled, “Red light! Stop!” Of course, the Professor knocked them all down again! This crazy game of Red light, Green light went on until at last they ran into a huge clearing filled with many people who were waiting for them, they were all laughing.
The leader of the group came forward and said, “Hi my name is Jim, and this is my Church youth group. We have secret cameras along the trail and when we saw you on the trail, we could not resist having a little fun with you with that game. I hope there are no hard feelings. You are just in time for our Bible trivia contest, would you like to join the competition?” The Professor whispered to Shelly, “I am going to join the contest, showing how much I know about the Bible, maybe this will help me find God!” Shelly said, “Professor, it does not work that way, we cannot impress God with how much trivia we know, a person starts their relationship with God by accepting Jesus…” The Professor was not listening to Shelly, he went to Jim and said, “I want to be in the Bible trivia competition, I know a lot of Bible stories!”
The Professor and six of the students were going to compete in the Bible Trivia contest, they all went up on a stage in front of the group. Of course, the Professor was not looking where he was going, and he walked off the edge of the stage and fell onto the refreshment table! Popcorn and chips were flying everywhere! The Professor said, “Ooops!” Eventually they got the Professor back onto the stage and the contest began. The first question was about David & Goliath, the Professor quickly raised his hand and gave the correct answer. The next question was about Daniel in the Lion’s Den, and the Professor was the first one with the correct answer again! Josiah whispered to Shane, “How does the Professor know all these answers so well?” Shane answered, “The Professor built a time machine, and we visited all these Bible stories and we saw them happen right in front of us!” Josiah answered, “That is so cool, I wish I could have been there!” There were 50 questions, and the Professor gave the correct answer to 45 of the questions. Josiah asked Shelly, “Why did the Professor miss those 5 questions?” Shelly answered, “Those 5 questions were all about Jesus dying on the cross, and we did not see that story. We saw stories of Jesus before He went to the cross, and we saw stories about Jesus after He rose from the dead, but we never saw Jesus on the cross.” Josiah answered, “Maybe that is why the Professor is having such a hard time understanding how to have a relationship with God, it all starts at the cross.” Shane answered, “Shelly and I know that, but the Professor just cannot seem to understand that yet. I have been praying that the Professor somehow learns about what Jesus did for him on the cross!”
Jim stood up and announced, “The grand champion of our Bible trivia contest is Professor Ooops! He was the first to correctly answer 45 of the questions! No one has ever done this good on our trivia contest before!” Jim handed the Professor a big trophy! The Professor had a huge smile on his face as he accepted the trophy. The Professor then promptly tripped over Jim’s foot and turned a complete summersault as he fell off the stage! The trophy flew out of the Professor’s hands and landed on a large rock! It broke into three pieces! No one in the crowd laughed they were all so sad when they saw the Professor’s trophy was broken! Shelly picked up the trophy pieces and said, “I will try to glue the trophy back together for you Professor!” The Professor did not answer Shelly, he just walked away with his head down. Shane and Josiah ran and caught up with the Professor and Shane said, “Do not feel so bad Professor, we were so proud of you! You did awesome in that Bible trivia contest!” The Professor answered, “I do not feel bad about the trophy breaking, I feel bad because I thought that showing all my Bible knowledge would make me seem closer to God. I still do not have a friendship with God, maybe God does not want me!” Josiah answered, “That is not true! God does want to have a friendship with you, He wants to forgive all your sins…” Josiah realized that the Professor was not listening to him anymore because Jim was announcing to his youth group that the next contest would be a competition to see who had memorized the most Bible verses! The Professor got excited again! He said, “Maybe that contest will help me in my quest to find God!” Josiah asked the Professor, “Have you memorized a lot of Bible verses?” The Professor thought for a moment and then said, “I do not think that I know even one Bible verse, maybe I should not enter this competition. I cannot impress God with my knowledge of Bible verses either.”
The Learning Corner:
The Professor believed that he could impress God by showing off his knowledge of Bible trivia and Bible verses that were memorized. The Professor was wrong, showing off our knowledge does not impress God, all it does is make us proud. The Professor is very much like a man in the Bible named Nicodemus. The story of Nicodemus in found in the Bible in the book of John in the chapter 3.
Nicodemus was a religious leader of the people of Israel (kind of like a pastor), he knew all the stories in the Old Testament of the Bible, and he had memorized many Bible verses and even whole chapters of the Bible. People were very impressed by Nicodemus! But Nicodemus was also like Professor Ooops, he did not feel like he really knew God. Nicodemus came secretly to Jesus at night (so that he would not be embarrassed in front of all the people). Jesus knew exactly what Nicodemus needed and Jesus told Nicodemus that he needed to be born again. Being born again means that a person gets a new spiritual life from God. Jesus went on to explain how to get this new life from God. In the Bible in the book of John chapter 3 verses 16-18 it says:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only son.”
The secret to having a relationship and friendship with God is believing in Jesus and His death on the cross to pay for your sins. Today you can pray and ask for the forgiveness of your sins and start your friendship with God. Do it today, do not wait until later!