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Lessons 16-17
DESERT LANDSCAPES

Truth to Teach (Source)

Isaiah 35:6 ‘… Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the
desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground

bubbling springs.’

 Deserts are often used to illustrate spiritual dryness yet God can cause water to flow
in desert places

 Deserts can be sandy, rocky or stony or covered in soil.

 In deserts we may see heat shattering, water erosion, wind erosion

 Rock basins, sand dunes and oases

Way to Work (Means)

1. Review the previous lessons.

2. Show pictures of deserts covered in sand, soil, rock, stones to impress on the children
that not all deserts are sandy.

3. Recall with the children where we read about deserts in the Bible, eg the Israelites
wandered in the desert for forty years (Numbers 32:13), Jesus was led into the
desert to be tempted (Luke 4). Let the children share what they think it would be like
to live in a desert. If possible, show a DVD of parts of the Negev Desert in Israel.

Talk about deserts as illustrations of dry, arid places. Often our hearts become dry
and hard yet God can make water flow in a desert just as he can refresh us with his
Holy Spirit.

4. Define a desert as a place having less than 25 cm of rain each year. Compare it to
the local rainfall. (Oxford has about 60cm of rain annually.)

5. Give the children atlases/books to locate the world’s deserts which they could then
mark on a world map (Arabian, Sahara, Gobi, Patagonian, Arizona, Australian,
Turkestan, Iranian, Negev, Atacama, Namib-Kalahari, Thar)

(God's Amazing Landscapes) 30