Family Devotion One: Back to School
What You'll Need:
A Bible
A quart size jar full of large marshmallows
Two cups of M&M candies or Skittles
One cup of sugar
An empty bowl
Matthew 6:33
Make God's hope for
our lives and God's hope for the world your first priority.
Pray Together:
Dear God,
We are a busy family. Some in our family attend school. Others hold jobs and we all need time to play together. We often have meetings, errands, chores, sports, art classes or other lessons. We like to go places together, we have to make meals, we need to buy groceries and we need to clean our rooms. We have to email or write letters to friends and family who don't live close; we have homework to do. We like to watch television or movies sometimes.
Dear God, we know the most important thing our family can do is to spend time thinking about what you want us to do and how you want us to act. Please help us to love you and to love others more and more each day. Amen.
Share Together (inspired by Laura Meyers):
Empty the marshmallows into a bowl. Ask who thinks that all the ingredients will fit into the jar at one time. Let's think about our busy lives. The marshmallows represent those things that God wants us to do. The M&Ms are important things in our lives such as family and friends. The sugar represents all the activities we do such as school, soccer, choir and other activities.
Name some of those activities as you pour the sugar in the jar. Do the same with the M&Ms -- name all our family and friends. Then, try to put the marshmallows in the jar. Why can't they fit? What does that mean that the marshmallows are left out?
Empty out everything from the jar. Put the marshmallows in first. Talk about the things that God wants us to do. Sharing. Caring for others. Praying together. Then, add in the M&Ms and then the sugar. Now everything fits. Why does everything work better when we put God first?
How can we, as a family, start thinking more about how God would like the world to be and start doing things that make the world that way? When we make that our first priority, the rest of our life works well and everything fits well. Plan ways to share together where you saw the world looking like God's vision (we call them God Sightings). Plan to share times when you each had a chance to do something to make that happen.
Plan the time when you will gather together weekly to have family devotions.
What You'll Need:
A Bible
A quart size jar full of large marshmallows
Two cups of M&M candies or Skittles
One cup of sugar
An empty bowl
Matthew 6:33
Make God's hope for
our lives and God's hope for the world your first priority.
Pray Together:
Dear God,
We are a busy family. Some in our family attend school. Others hold jobs and we all need time to play together. We often have meetings, errands, chores, sports, art classes or other lessons. We like to go places together, we have to make meals, we need to buy groceries and we need to clean our rooms. We have to email or write letters to friends and family who don't live close; we have homework to do. We like to watch television or movies sometimes.
Dear God, we know the most important thing our family can do is to spend time thinking about what you want us to do and how you want us to act. Please help us to love you and to love others more and more each day. Amen.
Share Together (inspired by Laura Meyers):
Empty the marshmallows into a bowl. Ask who thinks that all the ingredients will fit into the jar at one time. Let's think about our busy lives. The marshmallows represent those things that God wants us to do. The M&Ms are important things in our lives such as family and friends. The sugar represents all the activities we do such as school, soccer, choir and other activities.
Name some of those activities as you pour the sugar in the jar. Do the same with the M&Ms -- name all our family and friends. Then, try to put the marshmallows in the jar. Why can't they fit? What does that mean that the marshmallows are left out?
Empty out everything from the jar. Put the marshmallows in first. Talk about the things that God wants us to do. Sharing. Caring for others. Praying together. Then, add in the M&Ms and then the sugar. Now everything fits. Why does everything work better when we put God first?
How can we, as a family, start thinking more about how God would like the world to be and start doing things that make the world that way? When we make that our first priority, the rest of our life works well and everything fits well. Plan ways to share together where you saw the world looking like God's vision (we call them God Sightings). Plan to share times when you each had a chance to do something to make that happen.
Plan the time when you will gather together weekly to have family devotions.
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