Activity -Eye of a Needle

This activity explores how we engage with God’s blessing to us – do we hold them or do they hold us?

You will need some paper, scissors, pen, glue stick and a length of string or wool.

Cut a strip from the long side of your paper, about 1cm wide. Then cut the rest of the sheet the other way into shorter strips, about 3cm wide. Take all the wide strips and fold them in half. Glue them around your string, so that they look like a row of flags. Now fold the thin strip in half and glue it, leaving the part near the fold unglued. This should make a needle shape. Make sure the eye is just big enough for the string.

Think about things that you hold onto tightly, things that it would hurt for you to lose. This might be family, home, job, security, health or other things. Write each on one of the flags.

Many of the things on the flags are blessings from God, and are good. But they are not ours.

The earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it,
the world, and those who live in it. (Ps 24:1)

We need to remember that all the things we have are God’s; we are just looking after them for a time. We must keep a light hold, not a tight hold, on the blessings of this world and be willing to give them back to God’s care when required.

Try to thread your string through the needle. It won’t go through. You will need to let go of the precious things on the flags.

Pull off each flag as you pull the string through the needle, praying over what is written there as you do. Into your hands I commend my job, my children, my money.