ARMOR OF GOD PUPPET SKITS
Sergeant Cornbread: (enters loudly and commanding) Attention, soldiers! We’ve no time to waste! Drop and give me fifty!
Granny Grace: (enters) Sergeant Cornbread! What is all the shouting about?
Sergeant Cornbread: Granny Grace, you’re just in time! I’m here to help these young warriors get into shape! You asked for my help and that’s what I’m doing!
Granny Grace: Yes, I asked you to help but I didn’t mean I wanted you to make everyone do pushups or workout.
Sergeant Cornbread: You don’t want them doing pushups? No physical training today? Are you sure you don’t want me to run them until they collapse?
Granny Grace: No, no and no! I want you to help me share God’s word.
Sergeant Cornbread: (clears throat) Um, oh, I see.
Melody: (enters) Excuse me, is everything okay out here?
Carlos: (enters) We heard yelling.
Granny Grace: Hello, Melody and Carlos! I am so glad you could make it. Everything is just fine, Sergeant Cornbread just got a little carried away, but it’s all under control.
Sergeant Cornbread: I wasn’t yelling. I was just speaking loudly and clearly.
Granny Grace: Okay, enough about that. Let’s talk about David.
Sergeant Cornbread: Yes, ma’am!
Melody: Who is David?
Sergeant Cornbread: David was a mighty warrior! He pulverized God’s enemies! He was a powerful king! If anyone messed with God’s people, David would squash them like bugs! Splaaat!
Carlos: Wow! David sounds awesome! I wish I were stronger and had big muscles but I just have these little skinny arms. I’m also short. I hate being short. I get made fun of for it all the time.
Granny Grace: Carlos, you are more like David than you know.
Carlos: I am?
Granny Grace: Yes, you most certainly are. Just keep listening. We need to back up a little bit, Sergeant Cornbread, back up to when David was just a boy.
Sergeant Cornbread: I’ll start with Samuel.
Melody: Who is Samuel?
Sergeant Cornbread: Samuel was God’s servant and priest. God told Samuel it was time to anoint a new king for Israel. God didn’t tell Samuel who the next king would be, but he did tell Samuel that he would find him at Jesse’s house.Jesse was David’s father.
Melody: I think we have already figured out that Samuel anointed David as the next king of Israel. David must have been so popular when he was a kid! It sounds like he really had it made. I wish I were popular. I bet David was so handsome and popular. If I were prettier, I bet I would be more popular.
Granny Grace: David wasn’t popular. He had seven older brothers and they all took turns picking on him.
Sergeant Cornbread: His parents made him take care of the sheep, so he spent most of his time out in the field alone taking care of sheep. While he was taking care of the sheep he liked to sing songs to God and play the harp.The harp! His brothers thought he was weird and they were right. David was definitely a little different.
Granny Grace: Nobody looked at David and saw a king. All they saw was a weird kid that didn’t seem to fit in.
Sergeant Cornbread: Even when Samuel, God’s good and faithful priest, arrived at David’s house, and saw Jesse’s oldest son, he thought this surely must be the one God wants me to anoint as king.
Granny Grace: Jesse’s oldest son looked strong and handsome, everything you might expect a king to look like on the outside. However, God said that he was not the one.
Sergeant Cornbread: Jesse gathered all of his son’s together before Samuel, all of them except David. Not even David’s father thought he could be king.
Granny Grace: One by one, Samuel looked at David’s older, bigger brothers and one by one God rejected them until there was none left. Samuel finally asked, is this it? Do you have any more sons? Just one more, Jesse said, but he’s tending sheep. Samuel asked for David to be brought before him and they all waited.
Sergeant Cornbread: So in walks the youngest and smallest of all the brothers, the harp playing, singsong shepherd boy, the least likely to be chosen for anything and God speaks to Samuel and tells him that David is the one. Samuel anointed David with oil and declared him the next king of Israel. At that moment, the spirit of God came upon David with power!
Carlos: Wow! I wonder why God chose David.
Granny Grace: God chose David because David’s heart belonged to God. David loved God and did his best to serve God and obey God.
Sergeant Cornbread: We all can look at ourselves and find things that we wish were different, and others will often try to make us feel bad because of these things. People will tell us we are not good enough, we’re too thin, too fat, too short, too tall, we should dress like this, we should act like that.
Granny Grace: If we listen to others to tell us who we are, pretty soon we will start to believe the wrong things about ourselves and that will keep us from being all the great and mighty things God wants us to be.
Sergeant Cornbread: You belong to God. God created you and the only thing that is true about you is what God says is true and God says you are wonderful. The power of God came upon David when he was anointed king because David believed what God said about him was true. David trusted God and believed God and that gave David the strength to become everything God said he already was.
Melody: Did David leave with Samuel and become king right away?
Granny Grace: No, David had to wait about 15 years before he became king. People fought him, many doubted him, but David never listened to anyone but God to tell him who he was. If David believed people over God about who he was then David would have never been king.
Carlos: So, I may be short and I may be skinny but I belong to God and I’m going to love who I am and believe that God has great things in store for me because that is what he tells me in his word!
Melody: Yeah! And I may not be so popular and maybe I don’t look like everyone else or dress like everyone else but I am a daughter of the most high God and I’m amazing because God says so!
Sergeant Cornbread: Now you’re getting it, soldiers! Your strength comes from God. You belong to God. You’re soldiers for the Kingdom of Heaven. Could you imagine a soldier in the military listening to somebody who wasn’t his commanding officer or wasn’t even in the military about what his rank or status was?
Carlos: No way! A soldier wouldn’t let somebody outside of the military tell him what his rank was. That doesn’t even make any sense. He would only take orders from his commanding officer, nobody else would have the authority to tell him what to do or what his rank was.
Melody: That’s right! And only God has the authority to tell us who we are!
Sergeant Cornbread: A good soldier knows that his strength comes from the military unit he belongs to. You belong to the Kingdom of Heaven and when you believe what God says about you, that makes you strong in the Lord! You have all of heaven backing you to help you accomplish what God has prepared for you to do.
Granny Grace: It’s so easy to focus on the outward appearance of others but just remember our Bible verse, 1 Samuel 16:7, But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Carlos: I am so pumped up about being a soldier in God’s Army! I need to go tell somebody that Jesus loves them! I can’t hold it in any longer! (exit)
Melody: Wait for me! (exit)
Granny Grace: Thank you Sergeant Cornbread for helping us here today. I think we better go see where they have run off to! (exit)
Sergeant Cornbread: Run! That’s a good idea. Next time we can run a few miles up hill and crawl through the mud! Hooah! (exit)
