This evening we did our second devotional for our 25 Days of Christmas countdown.
I started off with the word "Christmas", and explained to the kids that we are sort of spelling it out-last night we started with 'Christ' and learned about how our families, lives and hearts need to be centered on Christ, and tonight we were going to learn about the "M", which (for us this year) stands for "Making Memories". This got Gwen (7), and Jenna (6) competing over who could spell Christmas out loud correctly with no help. I drew a bunch of hangman type blanks on a page and they called out letters until it was spelled out-and it dawned on me that they hadn't seen it in print yet when Gwen exclaimed-"It starts with Christ!" (Duh I should have thought about SHOWING them the spelling last night. But oh well.)
I took each of the letters from Christmas and wrote them down the side of a page and informed the kids that we were going to make a family acrostic poem out of the word. (I had to explain to the little ones what it was and was pretty surprised because I thought they already knew.) My kids came up with this:
Christ, caring
Holy
Reverence, repentance
Ice cream(?), imagination, icing
Savior, star
Tree,
Mass (of sheep), Mary, mistletoe
Abundance, ask (for forgiveness and everything under the sun)
Salvation
Yeah, the odder ones were usually Jenna's. She's a silly little thing sometimes.
I read the kids Psalm 78:1-4:
"1 O my people, hear my teaching;
listen to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth in parables,
I will utter hidden things, things from of old-
3 what we have heard and known,
what our fathers have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children;
we will tell the next generation
the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD,
his power, and the wonders he has done."
I told the kids that I am telling them about 'the praiseworthy deeds of His love', and that someday when they are parents, they will be responsible for telling THEIR kids about His love, and explained to them that this is what it means when it says we ill 'utter things from old, what we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us.' I told them that we can make nice family memories while we learn about Jesus and God as a family.
*Then I asked each child to tell me about one thing they like to do with our family that is a fun memory. (i.e. Gwen said she loves baking cookies with me during the holidays.)
I went on to the gospel, and read about 20 verses from where we left off last night. Tonight's lesson was "Zechariah Doubts God".
I read them Luke 1:5-25:
"5In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron.
6Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commandments and regulations blamelessly.
7But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren; and they were both well along in years.
8Once when Zechariah's division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, 9he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense.
10And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.
11Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense.
12When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear.
13But the angel said to him: "Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John.
14He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth,
15for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth.
16Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God.
17And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."
18Zechariah asked the angel, "How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years."
19The angel answered, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news.
20And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time."
21Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple.
22When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.
23When his time of service was completed, he returned home. 24After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. 25"The Lord has done this for me," she said. "In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people."
I read this to them from my Bible, and then told them the story in simpler terms so they could better understand it. I explained to them that Zechariah didn't believe the messenger from God so he was struck dumb and couldn't speak. I asked them: should they believe God or not believe God? (Of course, as little kids, they were shocked that someone wouldn't believe God and answered with a resounding "We should believe Him!") I told them about Zechariah's doubtful, unbelieving reaction, and Elizabeth's joyous, thankful reaction and asked how their reactions differed. I asked them if they knew who the baby was that would be born named John (Jenna "John the bap-thist!") and who did he baptize? (resounding chorus: "Jesus!")
I told the kids that we were going to play a game! This game was kind of like Simon Says, but it was called "Zechariah, God Says"-Zechariah didn't listen to God, and everyone should listen to God, so we were going to practice listening by playing this game. I let my 12 year old be the caller, and anyone who did something when "God didn't say" would get one strike-3 strikes and you're out! We went into my living room and moved the coffee table out of the way and played our game for probably about 20 minutes or so-the kids had a BLAST! (my favorite was "God says to go hug and kiss your mommy!!!" After which I was attacked by all the giggling kids and hugged and kissed until I thought I was going to fall over on my living room carpet and be mauled lol.) Christian made it really fun for us (I played with them.) The last commandment was "Zechariah, God says go to the dining room so we can end our session in prayer before bedtime." We all headed into the dining room, got into a circle and held hands, and I had Christian pray for us (each child will get a turn on various days). He told God thank you for our devotional and that we had a lot of fun doing it, and he asked that we would be equally blessed the next night when we do our next devotional. He thanked Him for all of the wonderful things we have, and asked him to watch over those less forunate than us. I sent the girls upstairs to brush their teeth and get ready for bed.
I'm so happy with tonight's devotional! The kids had a lot of fun and I think they really learned. I hope that He will send me ideas to keep it fun for my family so they don't get bored.
