Read Luke 13:1-9 with your family.

Jesus talked about two bad things that happened to the Hebrew people and reminded his followers that bad things did not happen to them because they were bad people. God does not hurt people who make bad choices. A lot of people in Bible times thought that, and some people today still think that, but that is not how God treats us.

For us to understand God better and to know that God only wants good things for us, we have to spend time learning more about God. That is the second part of this reading: the story of the fig tree.

Jesus used the fig tree story to show us that just because we go to church, attend Sunday school, and look like we are doing all the right things, that does not mean that deep down we are working to understand God. Just like the farmer who just assumed the fig tree would grow on its own without help, that’s what we often assume about people in church.

We have to try harder, pray more, do good things for others like Jesus taught us. Those are the ways to understand God, and we all have to do that work, children and grown-ups, just like the farmer had to work to make the fig tree produce good fruit.