Leader Guide

Object Lesson

Card stock—seven sheets
Bibles or Superbook Bible App
Scissors
Small sealable bag of sand—also used in activity, “It’s in the Bag”
Star Pattern

Print seven copies of the Star Pattern on card stock.

Cut out the stars—you may want to ask an adult or child to help with this task during the week.

Hide 34 stars around the room. Don’t make it difficult. The stars should be fairly obvious—don’t hide them in high places or require children to open drawers, boxes or cabinets.

Keep one star for the presentation. Hide the remaining 7 stars around the room in several places (some in pairs) where they can’t be discovered by the children. Make a list of your locations so you know where you hid them!

Have the children look up Genesis 22:15–18. Choose five volunteers to each read one sentence of the verses aloud.

Then the angel of the Lord called again to Abraham from heaven.
“This is what the Lord says: Because you have obeyed Me and have not withheld even your son, your only son, I swear by My own name that I will certainly bless you.
I will multiply your descendants beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore.
Your descendants will conquer the cities of their enemies.
And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed—all because you have obeyed Me.”

That was a very difficult test that Abraham took! How did he do it? Abraham was absolutely persuaded that God would keep His promise; and that through his son, Isaac, he would be blessed with countless descendants. God rewarded his faith and obedience with a very big blessing! How big? Hold up the bag of sand.

God said Abraham’s descendants would number like the sand at the seashore. Look at this sand; you can hardly tell one grain from another! It would take a very long time to count every grain of sand in this bag. Now imagine how much sand is on just one beach! Then think of how much sand is on all the seashores of the world! Now think of how much sand is in the Sahara Desert—and all the deserts of the world! We can’t even imagine how many grains of sand that would be. Now here’s something amazing—astronomers tell us there are more stars in the sky than grains of sand on planet Earth!

On a clear night, you might be able to see 2,000 to 3,000 stars—if you didn’t fall asleep first! There are hundreds of billions of stars just in our galaxy—and there may be billions of galaxies in the universe! That’s a lot of stars! Isn’t God amazing?

Hold up the star you held back. There are some missing stars around the room, like this one, and I need some help locating them. Do you think you can help me find all of them?

Great, let’s get started! Send about five children to search at one time. Have each child find one star and bring it back to you. Continue sending out different children until all are found. Give hints as necessary to speed the search. Have the children sit down when all are found.

What great searchers you are; thank you! You found all the stars that you could see! But, the problem is that there are some more you didn’t see! Begin walking around and pulling out stars that you hid as you talk—saying things like, “Oh, here is one we missed,” or “Here is another one way over here.” That is how God’s blessings are—you can’t possibly see and count all of them! God told Abraham He would multiply his descendants BEYOND NUMBER! That means you can’t possibly count them all! Just like these stars, you counted all you could see, but there were many more you could not see!