Sermon Illustrations

The Youth Leader had taken their combined group camping. It had been fun making preparation and deciding on where to go. But now the first day of camping was over and it was time to sat around the almost dead campfire with only the glow of the last dying branches they had burned. The chaperons had helped to get the group in the sleeping bags and it was quite except for some whispers coming from a few.

One of the chaperons had volunteered to give the first talk on the first night back in the planning stages. She had prayed for just such a time to deliver her first treatise on the subject of life. She started off with a comparison of life and a rug. Trying to understand Life she said is like looking at the backside of a hand woven rug. It’s hard to see the pattern or understand what the picture on the other side is like. But when God looks at our lives he sees the rug from the front side. God sees the beauty of our lives. She has a short prayer and everybody does the “John boy” thing to each other and it gets quiet.

Then from the dark comes this young voice. “You know what?” After a short moment someone says: No. The young voice continues, When we look at the beautiful sky with all of the stars shining we are looking at the bottom of the rug of heaven.

Isn’t it wonderful that on the beautiful side of the rug of heaven we have a God that loves us and has told us to pray to him? Praying to God is a simple statement that can get very complicated trying to explain it.