Jael Learns the Ten Commandments

Jael Learns the Ten Commandments

  by Melissa A. Brown

  Book Two in The Littlest Missionary Series

  Copyright 2013 Melissa Brown

  More Titles in The Littlest Missionary Series from Melissa Brown Coming Soon!

  Jael, the littlest missionary, is going to Australia to tell all the children about God. But, she knows that she needs to learn all she can about God, so she’ll have lots to say when she gets there.

  Her mommy tells her that everyone should know God’s Ten Commandments. Ten! That’s a lot, and Jael cries that there is no way she’ll be able to remember them all. Mommy reminds her that she can do anything with God’s help and tells her to do her best.

  The next day, Jael thinks about the first commandment: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Well, God is the one and only true God. He’s always number one by Himself. That’s easy to remember, she decides. God is all alone number one; the first commandment is to keep God number one. Yeah!

  Later that day, Jael plays with her stuffed animals trying to teach them the Ten Commandments as well. They all remember number one, but two is harder. Caty, her caterpillar, seems lost. What’s a “graven image”? Jael goes to ask her daddy; he’ll know. Daddy smiles and tells her that a graven image is something not alive, like a statue, that people worship as God. “That’s just silly,” Jael says, “Is that like me holding up Bunny Rabbit and saying he’s God?” Daddy nods, and Jael laughs. So, that’s like having a second god! The second commandment is not having a second thing to worship as God, no graven images. Yeah! Jael can remember that.

  The next day, Jael goes to the grocery store with her mother. As they leave the store, Jael hears a man in the parking lot saying God’s name. He sounds very angry, and Jael doesn’t understand why the man would be so angry if he knows God. So, she asks her mother. “Well, Jael, I don’t think it is God that he is mad at, but he is using God’s name in a bad way. We should never use God’s name that way.” “So, he doesn’t love God?” Jael wonders. “Maybe he doesn’t remember that’s one of God’s commandments,” Mommy points out. “We should stop our mouths like this,” Mommy puts three fingers over her mouth, “before we ever use God’s name like that. It dishonors God and makes him very sad.” Oh, Jael thinks, three fingers stop our mouth. God’s third commandment is to stop our mouths from using God’s name badly (three fingers, third commandment). Jael can remember that! Yeah!

  Later that evening, Jael is trying to keep number four in her mind…something about Sam’s Bath day? Who is Sam? She feels confused until Daddy says that it’s the Sabbath Day (the Lord’s Day) not Sam’s bath day. Oh, like when Jael gets to go to church on Sunday. Daddy says that they honor the Lord’s Day (Sunday) by being in church and not out doing other things. Hmmm, four, four, four…how to remember four. Suddenly, Jael has an idea and goes to look at the calendar. Mommy says the calendar shows all the days of the year on it (even Jael’s birthday). She counts every Sunday she finds in the calendar, and makes a great discovery. Most months have only four Sundays (four Lord’s Days…fourth commandment). Yeah! That’s easy.

  Jael realizes something cool: The first four commandments are all about God Himself (His being God, His image, His name, and His day). That’s really neat! So, what else is important to God? What comes right after God? Oh, the fifth commandment is to “Honor Your Mother and Father.” Parents are a big deal to God, and Jael knows that obeying her parents is obeying God also. So, parents come right after God, so the commandment that comes right after God’s laws towards Himself is about parents. It’s a good thing that Jael loves her mom and dad. She thinks that it may be hard to remember that commandment if her parents were mean. So, number five is about honoring parents. Okay!

  Jael gets excited because she realizes that she’s learned the first five commandments (that’s half of them already): Keep God number one, don’t use a second image as God, stop your mouth from misusing God’s name, keep the Lord’s Day holy, and always honor your parents. This is getting easy! Now, what about number six? That’s a tough one.

  The next evening, Jael’s dad is watching the news on TV after dinner. Jael sees a lot of police cars and flashing lights on the screen and asks what happened. Daddy explains that a police officer was killed while doing his job and that the rest of the police officers were glad to find the man who had killed him. Jael then thinks about the sixth commandment: Thou shalt not kill. She guesses the man in the back of the police car didn’t know the commandments. “What will happen to the policeman who died, Daddy?” “They will have a funeral, a service where all the people who loved him will get to come and say goodbye to him; then, they will bury him in the ground.” Jael’s eyes got big, “In the ground? Like when the dog next door buries his bones?” “Well, they bury people down six feet so that no one can disturb their bodies after death.” Six feet is a LONG way down; Jael is barely three feet tall all by herself. Oh, six feet, the sixth commandment, Jael thinks. When a person is killed, they are buried down six feet, and the sixth commandment is not to kill anyone. Jael can remember that!

  Math can be an easy subject, but Jael has to pay a lot of attention in order to get math problems right. She and mommy work on learning the difference between even and odd numbers. So, even means sets of two. Odd means one extra. So, mommy and daddy together make an even number, two. But, Jael turned it into an odd number when she was born because she is one extra member in the family. That’s fun! Grandma and Grandpa are an even number, but Aunt April and Uncle Ruben have an odd number of kids since they have five (two sets of two with one extra). Cool! Jael’s next school lesson for the day is on the next commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery. “What’s A-DOLL-TREE?” She asks her mother. Mommy answers that adultery is when a married person becomes too close with a third person instead of the spouse. Why would that ever happen? Mommy and Daddy are best friends; aren’t all mommies and daddies best friends? Jael’s mom tells her that she’ll find that out later. But, Jael is still thinking about God’s commandment not to have any extra people in a marriage, like an odd number. Adultery is having an odd number in marriage. Wait, she realizes, seven is an odd number, and the seventh commandment is about not bringing an odd one into a marriage. Jael is pretty sure she can remember that, only a few more to learn.

  The next day is Sunday, and Jael goes to church with Daddy and Mommy. She loves going to Sunday school and learning all the funny stories that are in the Bible, like the man who got eaten by a whale and the pigs that ran off a cliff because they followed the Devil. Plus, all Jael’s friends are there, and they always sing and play games on the Lord’s Day. During snack time, Jael’s friend Olivia is playing around and snatches Jael’s piece of candy, eating it before Jael has a chance to say anything. While Olivia laughs, Jael starts to get upset. “Miss Turner!” she calls, “Olivia stole my candy!” The Sunday school teacher turns to the girls and gives Olivia a disapproving look, “Olivia, you know it isn’t right to steal and take something that doesn’t belong to you. That’s even one of God’s Ten Commandments. You need to apologize to Jael for taking and eating her candy.” Then to Jael, “Now, you need to be careful about getting too upset. Olivia should not have taken the candy, but it important that we learn how to control our attitudes also.” Olivia says she’s sorry for taking what wasn’t hers, and Jael smiles, instantly friends again. “Wait!” Jael exclaims suddenly, “Olivia ‘ate’ my candy after stealing it, and the ‘eight’ commandment is not to steal.” If they ‘ate’ other people’s stuff, they wouldn’t be following the eighth commandment. Okay, Jael thinks she can remember that. Yeah!

  Monday morning comes, and Jael really doesn’t want to do any of her school work. It isn’
t as fun as playing with her toys. So, she stays in her bedroom pretending to complete her school work for the day but really coloring in her favorite coloring book. Right before lunchtime, Jael hears Mommy coming down the hallway towards her bedroom. She grabs her history book and turns to a random page with a picture of the American flag on it. “Are you almost finished with your school work, Jael?” “Yes, Mommy, I’m just finishing reading my history lesson about the American flag. It’s really interesting!” Her smile looks different, and Mommy notices Jael’s crayons strewn all over her desk, the favored coloring book leaning sloppily against the books on her shelf. Mommy’s eyebrows rise. “Jael, have you been working on your school or coloring?” “I’ve been doing school!” “Really? You know the rule about lying. Lying is one of the worst things you can do. So, tell me the truth, or you will be in big trouble.” Mommy’s expression tells Jael that she is already caught, and she knows the punishment for lying makes everything worse. She swallows the lump now forming in her throat, “I’m sorry, Mommy. I wasn’t doing school. I was coloring, which is way more fun! I just…” Mommy’s disappointed expression makes Jael feel sad. She doesn’t want Mommy to be upset; she just wants to have fun. “Jael,” her mom sighs, “there isn’t anything wrong with coloring or even taking a break from school to color. There IS, however, a BIG problem with lying, first by not doing your work when you are supposed to and also by clearly telling me that you were working when you weren’t. Do you remember the commandments that we’ve been talking about the past couple of days? Which one is about lying?” Jael thinks for a second and remembers commandment number nine: Thou shalt not bear false witness (tell lies). She remembers that it’s number nine because “nine” sounds a LOT like “lie,” and she feels disappointed in how quickly she forgot the importance of telling the truth. She asks God and Mommy for forgiveness and promises to try never lying again. LIE rhymes with NINE; the ninth commandment says not to lie.

  That evening, Jael is watching a television show with her parents, noticing all the cool toys being shown in the commercials. She sees an ad for one of the new doll houses that her best friend Olivia had gotten for her birthday. That’s so awesome, Jael reasons, I should have one. It isn’t fair for Olivia to be the only girl with that awesome doll house! She tells Mommy and Daddy that she should have one of the doll houses because Olivia has one. Daddy informs Jael that she doesn’t need something just because someone else has it, that the desire to have another person’s things is called covetousness. Mommy asks Jael for the second time that day about God’s Ten Commandments. “What does the Bible say, Jael, about covetousness? Do you remember?” “It says not to…” Jael responds quietly. “That’s right,” Daddy continues, “when your ten little fingers are reaching out wanting something that belongs to another, it’s wrong. We should always be happy with what God puts into our lives and not worry about what He puts into other people’s lives. The tenth commandment is about not coveting other people’s things.” Jael considers this and decides that she doesn’t want Olivia to lose her doll house; Jael just would like to have one of her own. Like her daddy says, if her ten fingers are reaching for another person’s things, then it is breaking the tenth commandment: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods. Jael wants her own things, not Olivia’s.

  Wow! Jael thinks to herself. The next morning during her Bible class time, Mommy asks her to list God’s Ten Commandments, and Jael has no problem remembering all ten and even the correct order they go. One is to keep God number one. Two is to make no other image for God. Three is to stop your mouth from using His name in a bad way. Four is to keep every Lord’s Day holy and special. Five is to put daddy and mommy second only to God in importance and honor. Six is never to kill anyone so they end up six feet in the ground. Seven is to never add an odd person to a marriage. Eight is to never steal and “eat” what belongs to someone else. Nine is to never lie, which rhymes. Jael’s smile is huge as she neatly prints the number ten on her paper. Ten is not to want and reach out for what other people have.

  Jael is so excited! She has learned God’s Ten Commandments, and she knows that these will help her to know how always to please her Father God who loves her so very much! The children in Australia will be able to learn them too. Ten things IS a lot, but if Jael can learn them all, then everyone else can too!

  ***

  A Note from the Author:

  Thank you so much for reading my short story! As a mother of a toddler, heading to the foreign field as a church planting missionary, I wanted my daughter to feel blessed by God's choice to make her an MK (missionary kid). I pray that this and the following series of stories will be a blessing to her as she gets older and pray that it will be a blessing to anyone else who may read it as well. Know that whatever position you are in, whatever jobs or obstacles are in your life, God has a plan and a reason and a way to use you for His glory! God Bless!