The Tower of Babel
(Children's Version)

Today's story is about pride.  Pride is when you think you're better than someone else.  The problem with this, is that God hates pride.  When we think we are better than others we also start to think we don't need God and that we can handle things on our own.

The thing is, we ALWAYS need God.  He made us so that we would need Him.  He wants us to depend on Him and ask Him for help.  If we think that we have everything figured out and that we know it all, then we're really going our own way and turning away from God.

Just think about the last time you disobeyed your parents or you weren't nice to a friend.  You put your thoughts and feelings first and didn't care about how the other person felt.  That is pride.

In this story you'll see how God handles pride and how badly he wants to stop it from happening.  It all started with a King named Nimrod.

Everything was going great.  Everyone in the whole world spoke the same language.  Some of the people ended up living in a place called Babylonia.

Then King Nimrod decided he wanted to be famous.  He wanted everyone to know him and how great he was.  He convinced the people that lived in Babylonia that, they too could be great if they built a tower that went all the way to heaven.

So the people went to work making bricks for the Tower of Babel.  It was hard work but the people wanted everyone to know that they made the tower that reached heaven, so they just worked that much harder.  

The people also convinced themselves that by building the tower that would stay united.  Since they already spoke the same language, now they would be building the tower together.  Their pride had taken over and all they were thinking about was that they'd be known in all the world for building the biggest and best tower ever.

God could see what was happening all along, but decided to come down to earth and see the tower the people were building.  God could tell the people's hearts were more focused on themselves and the tower than on him.  He was very disappointed and angry with them.

God said, "I see that the people think they can do anything because they all speak the same language.  They have already begun to turn away from me and soon there won't be anything good left, all they'll do is sin.  I will mix up their language so they won't understand each other, this way they won't be able to work together to sin against me."

After God said this the people could no longer understand each other.  It seemed like they were babbling and making funny noises.   All the people suddenly spoke different languages, some spoke French, some Spanish, others Chinese, plus many other languages.  They were very confused. 

This was the beginning of the languages.  Imagine what would've happened if the people didn't try to build the tower in the first place and they focused on God instead.  Maybe we would all speak the same language today. 

From there the Lord scattered the people all over the whole earth.  

It's interesting because when the people starting building the tower of Babel, Babel meant "gateway to God" but after God mixed up their language it meant "confusion".  Even the word babble that we use today is said to come from that day when everyone was babbling with confusion.

So you can see how much God hates pride.  The people could've done amazing things for God when they all spoke the same language, and they could've been unified that way.  Instead they decided to do something silly and build a big tower just so other people would notice them and call them great.

The opposite of pride is humility, or to be humble.  The way you can be humble is by realizing that EVERYONE (poor people, people with disabilities, people of different races, etc.) are special.  Each of us might be good at some things, but you can be sure that each person is special at something that you're not.

If you want to be humble remember to listen to your parents and those in authority,  be kind to others instead of putting them down, and read your Bible and pray.  By doing these things you're not just focusing on yourself.

After all pride just causes a lot of trouble!