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’.
The Professor, Shane, Shelly, and their new friend Josiah had escaped from the flea market in the flying bus. They did not know which direction they were going because their compass did not have a needle, and they did not know where they were. After a few minutes, Josiah said, “Hey look, we are over the ocean and there is a huge cloud in front of us! It looks like a bad storm; we should turn around!” Josiah ran to the front of the bus and sat in the driver’s seat and frantically turned the steering wheel! Shane yelled, “The steering wheel does not work when we are flying! The only way to turn the flying bus to push the three big boxes in the center of the bus to one side, then the bus will turn in that direction!” The Professor, Shane, and Shelly ran to the center of the bus and pushed the three big boxes to the right side of the bus. The bus began turning to the right…and then it happened! A strong gust of wind hit the bus and spun the bus around in a circle! The three big boxes slid to the front of the bus, and the front of the bus started to point down toward the ocean! Shane and Shelly grabbed onto the seats in the bus and held on as tight as they could! The Professor grabbed onto a rope that was tied to the door handle, but it was a long rope and the Professor slid right out of the door while screaming, “Ooops!”
Josiah peeked out the door and said, “I see the Professor! The rope is holding him just above the water, but every wave is completely covering him!” It was true, every wave was completely covering the Professor! Just before every wave hit him, the Professor screamed, “Ooops!” He got so much water in this mouth that he decided not to scream anymore! Shelly said, “We have to get the Professor higher above the water!” Shane thought quickly and said, “If we can get the bus to fly level again, then the front of the bus will not be so low, and the Professor will be higher than the waves. We need to push the three big boxes toward the back of the bus!” Quickly they pushed the three big boxes to toward the back of the bus, and the flying bus became level again and the Professor was completely above the waves!
Josiah said, “We need to figure out how to get the Professor back inside the flying bus, but it is so dark down there!” Just then there was a close flash of lightning and Shane yelled, “It is so light!” Then there was a crash of thunder and Shelly yelled, “It is so loud!” The Professor yelled, “Ooops!” Josiah yelled “Now it is dark again!” There was lightning and Shane yelled, “Now it is light again!” There was thunder and Shelly yelled, “Now it is loud again!” The Professor yelled again, “Ooops!” Then the wind got wild! The flying bus began spinning around and the Professor was swinging on the end of his rope like yo-yo caught in a washing machine! Then a gust of air pushed the flying bus higher into the air than it had ever gone before! The next minute the flying bus dropped straight down about 100 feet! For a moment, the Professor was actually higher in the air than the flying bus! Shane had an idea, he said, “If the flying bus gets pushed higher again and drops down again, then during that time when the Professor is higher than the flying bus, we need to quickly pull in his rope and get him back inside!” It was a great idea! Two minutes later they felt the bus start to go straight up higher and higher! Shelly said, “Any minute now we will go back down”. Then it happened…the flying bus dropped straight down, and the Professor was flying higher than the bus! Josiah and Shane quickly pulled the slack rope into the flying bus and Shelly wrapped the rope around and around the driver’s seat. They almost had the Professor into the bus when the bus stopped going down, and the Professor was dangling about twenty feet below the flying bus. Josiah said, “We just have to wait for a strong gust to push us up to the top of the storm again.” They waited for about 10 minutes and then it happened…the strongest gust of wind they had ever felt hit the bus and spun it around and pushed it all the way up to the top of the clouds! When the bus began to drop down, they got the Professor back into the flying bus!
The Professor was safe in the flying bus, but the flying bus was still not safe! The wind and the rain kept pounding on the flying bus and they could not see where they were going, and they were getting dizzy from the flying bus spinning around so much! Shane said, “One of these times, the flying bus might drop down too low, and we might crash!” The Professor said, “Ooops!” Shelly said, “We need to get the flying bus back on land!” Josiah said, “Let’s pray and ask God to rescue us!” So, that is what they did, they prayed and asked God to bring them to a safe place to land the flying bus. When Josiah finished praying, they eagerly looked outside to see if their prayer was answered, but all they saw was more lightning, thunder, rain and huge waves on the ocean! They prayed more and kept looking for the answer to their prayer. About a half hour later the wind, rain, lightning, and thunder suddenly quit! Shane yelled, “We are out of the storm, we are safe!” Josiah answered, “We are not safe yet! Big storms like this one many times have a calm area right in the middle of the storm, we are only halfway through the storm! Look at all those huge clouds coming towards us!” Shelly yelled, “Don’t look at the clouds! Look below! I see an island down there!” The Professor said, “There is a big mountain in the middle of that island, if we land behind the mountain, we will be protected from the wind!” They pushed the three big boxes to the left side of the bus and turned to the left and started to fly towards the far side of the mountain. When they got past the peak of the mountain, the Professor slowed down the big propeller on the roof so that they would start to go down. Just then the second half of the storm hit them! The wind and rain were harder than before, and the lightning and thunder were worse! The flying bus started to spin around and then…the flying bus stopped spinning. They were below the peak of the mountain and the mountain was protecting them from the fury of the storm! The flying bus gently landed right at the base of that big mountain and it was so quiet! Shelly said, “It is so peaceful here, I know that the storm is raging, but we are perfectly protected, and we have peace!” Shane said, “We saw God’s power up close! That storm could have killed us, but God was completely in control, and He answered our prayer for help and guided us to this place of peace!”
Josiah said, “This storm reminds me of two Bible stories: In one story Jesus was with His disciples in a boat crossing the Sea of Galilee and Jesus took a nap. While He was sleeping a terrible storm came up and the disciples thought they were going to die. They woke Jesus and He just stood up and said, “Silence, be still” and the storm quit.
In the second Bible story the Old Testament Prophet Elijah was discouraged and needed to hear from God. God had Elijah stand at the entrance of a cave and God showed His power. First there was a terrible windstorm, then there was an earthquake, then there was a fire, and after all of that God spoke to Elijah in a gentle whisper.”
Josiah continued, “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 Learning Corner:
In the Bible in the Mark, chapter 4, verses 35-40 it says:
As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.” So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind. But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water. Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?” When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” suddenly the wind stopped and there was a great calm. The he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
In the Bible, in the book of I Kings, chapter 19, verses 11-12 it says:
“Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper.”
As Josiah said in our story; God has awesome power. He controls the whole universe with plenty of power left over. We cannot imagine how much power God has, He created this whole world by just ‘speaking’ it into existence, and He could destroy it just as easily. With all that power, some people are afraid of God, they think that God will overwhelm them and crush them! But God is not like that, He does not want to frighten us into loving Him, He wants us to come to Him willingly because we love Him! Almost always God speaks into our life using a ‘gentle whisper’. Spend time getting to know God, ask Him to guide you through life and show you the best way to live. You do not need to be afraid of Him, even though He is all-powerful!