Object Lesson: Gloves – the Hand of God at Work Within Us

Object Lesson:
Gloves – the
Hand of God at
Work Within Us
www.CreativeYouthIdeas.com
www.creativeobjectlessons.com

Finding one’s identity, purpose, and
meaning in life are common struggles
that every youth faces. They are
seeking an answer to the
question, “Why am I here?” In their
search for purpose, they may try to
find fulfillment in a variety of
things, some good, some bad. But our
purpose cannot be found in things.
Our identity is found by filling the
emptiness in our lives with Christ.
When God’s Hand is at work in our
lives, only then will we find true
meaning and purpose. Gloves are a
great object lesson to remind youth
of this spiritual truth and a simplified
version of this lesson makes a great
Children’s Sermon.

GLOVES
Resources
Collect a variety of gloves. Here are
some of the possible gloves you
could choose from:
• baseball glove
• welder’s glove
• leather gloves
• Winter gloves or mittens
• boxing gloves
• work gloves
• Surgical gloves
• Food preparation gloves
• Kitchen gloves
• Gardening Gloves

• Fingerless Gloves
• White Gloves
• Cycling Gloves
• Fur gloves
• Sequined gloves
• Goal Keeper’s Gloves
• Catcher’s Glove
• Golf Glove
• Driving Gloves
• Scuba Gloves
• Ski Gloves
• Washing Mitt
• Wheelchair Gloves

You might also have on hand a variety
of items to fill the gloves with. Here
are some possibilities: marbles, golf
balls, M&Ms, skittles, coins, sand,
water, salt, beans, paper clips, sticks,
straws, pencils, ice, jello, baby powder,
etc. The possibilities are endless.
These can be symbolic or simply for
fun. Marbles could represent gems,
golf balls can represent sports, paper
clips – work, M&M’s sweets or desires,
coins – wealth, aspirin or beer – drugs,
condoms – sex.
You can also add a wacky game to this
object lesson by planning to divide the
youth into teams and providing a
rubber glove for each team

Preparation
• Display the gloves in a way
that all the youth can see
them.
• Have the items to fill the
gloves readily available but
hidden from sight. Have
them hidden in such a way
that you only need to reveal
one at a time. Suspense and
curiosity are great tools for
teaching as the youth will be
trying to guess what you will
fill the gloves with next.

Wacky Game – Optional
• Divide the youth into teams and
give each team a rubber kitchen
glove.
• The youth must select one team
member to put the rubber glove
on over his (or her) head and pull
it down over their nose and
inflate it using air from his nose.
Once the glove is filled with air so
that it is inflated and stands up
on top of the youth’s head, they
must run to you while crowing
like a rooster.
• It is not only hilarious, but it is
also fun for the youth. If you
want to make it last a little
longer, have it as a relay race
between the teams of youth.

What to Do
• Begin by showing the youth
the various other types of
gloves, and then ask the youth
to identify the various types of
gloves, the purpose for
each, and who might use each
of them?
• Explain that the empty gloves
are like the lives of youth. Both
youth and adults try to fill the
emptiness in their lives with
different things.

• Demonstrate by filling the
gloves with various objects. As
you go through each collection
of items, ask the youth, “Is this
what the glove is intended to be
used for?”
• After you go through the
items, ask the youth what the
emptiness in the glove is
supposed to be filled with? Of
course the answer is someone’s
hand.
• Ask the youth, what can the
glove do by itself? Of course
the answer is nothing.

Take It to the Next Level
Make it Spiritual
(Note you might share some of the
things you tried to fill your life with
before you accepted Christ as you
share the following information:
Every person tries to fill their glove
(or life) with different things: like
money, sports, drugs, sex, work, food,
money, friends, family, or even church
to find meaning. While some things
are obviously bad, others aren’t
necessarily bad things, but simply not
what the glove (life) was created for.
In fact some of the things are good in
the right context, but become bad
when they become the primary goal
for our existence.

Explain that those things don’t
allow the glove to be used the way
it was created to be used.
You can use the example of alcohol
as something that may seem
fulfilling for a while, but in the end
leaves you even emptier than
before. (You can fill up a specially
prepared rubber glove that has
been slit at the finger tips so that
all the liquid drains out.)

At the very end of your examples, put
your hand in the glove, and show how
it is now useful and can fulfill its
intended purpose. Explain that a glove
can do all sorts of things – pick up a
book, wave good-bye, scratch my head,
play golf, work, pat someone on the
back. By itself, it can do nothing. But if I
put my hand in the glove… [put it on]…
this glove can do almost anything I
want.
Different gloves are created with a
different intended purpose. But a glove
can do nothing once the hand as been
removed. It is the same with our lives,
in an of ourselves we can do nothing of
lasting significance, but with God in us
all things become possible.

Blaise Pascal said that we have all
been created with a God-shaped
vacuum that only he can fill. We will
only find true meaning and purpose
when we let the hand of God work in
our lives to accomplish his will here
on earth.
Make it Personal
What are some of the purposes that
God has for Christians?

Make it Practical
The easiest way to find that
purpose, is to yield to God. What is an
area of your life that God has been
speaking to you about yielding to
him?
Ask God to use you this week in a way
that glorifies him and gives you a
clearer understanding of his purpose
for your life.

Scripture References
Ephesians 2:8-10
“For it is by grace you have been
saved, through faith—and this is
not from yourselves, it is the gift of
God — not by works, so that no
one can boast. For we are God’s
handiwork, created in Christ Jesus
to do good works, which God
prepared in advance for us to do.”
Philippians 4:13
“I can do all this through him who
gives me strength.”

Colossians 1:27
“To them God has chosen to make
known among the Gentiles the
glorious riches of this mystery, which
is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Philippians 2:13
“for it is God who works in you to will
and to act in order to fulfill his good
purpose.”

2 Corinthians 3:5
“Not that we are competent in
ourselves to claim anything for
ourselves, but our competence
comes from God.”
Ephesians 3:19-20
“and to know this love that
surpasses knowledge—that you
may be filled to the measure of all
the fullness of God. Now to him
who is able to do immeasurably
more than all we ask or
imagine, according to his power
that is at work within us,”

MORE IDEAS? See “Creative Object Lessons”
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object lesson ideas and another 200 object
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Object Lesson: Gloves – the Hand of God at Work Within Us

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Object Lesson: Gloves – the Hand of God at Work Within Us