Riddle Me This: Fun, Flexible Family Devotional

Riddle Me This: Fun, Flexible Family Devotional - Parenting Like HannahWe have started posting a series of free, fun, flexible family devotionals. Fun, because we pick an activity we think your family will enjoy. Flexible, because the activity we have chosen fits with several different Bible stories and application principles. You get to choose which story and application principle you think your kids need the most.

That’s it! Let us know what you think and if these free devotionals are encouraging your family to study the Bible together. Here’s today’s devotional:

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Fun, Flexible Family Devotional

Fun Flexible Family Devotional - Parenting Like HannahFamily devotionals are great. Many families don’t do them because they take time and energy they don’t think they have. Others hesitate because they aren’t really sure what to do. Unfortunately, by not having family devotionals, you are missing out on great opportunities to teach your kids about God and what He wants from them and for them on a regular basis.

There are great family devotional books you can purchase, but not everyone has that kind of disposable income. So, I want to start sharing with you some fun family devotionals you can do with your kids. The best part is that they will be flexible. There will be one activity, but I will suggest multiple Bible stories and applications you can use with that activity. Then you can choose which story or application lesson your kids need the most.

Ready? Here’s what you need:

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Teaching Kids About True Godly Beauty

Teaching Kids About True Godly Beauty - Parenting Like HannahIn another day, this tree will be in full bloom. It is quite possibly one of the most beautiful of the trees that flower. That is until you get within several feet of it. The blooms on this variety of pear tree smell horrible. Not just mildly annoying, but how-quickly-can-I-get-away-from-this-smell terrible. As beautiful as the blooms are, I refuse to plant one in my yard because I can’t stand the stench that comes with those blooms.

Your kids need to learn the same principle applies to people. Someone who is absolutely beautiful, can have such a mean spiteful personality they no longer seem pretty. Conversely, someone the world might call unattractive can have the most loving, sweet spirit and begin to look beautiful as we get to know who they are on the inside.

You can create a fun family devotional focusing on the principle of outward versus inward beauty. Before you start, borrow some books from the library with lots of pictures of people in them. You may also want to think of places you can walk or explore that may have examples of things whose outer appearance and inner “beauty” don’t necessarily match. A farmer’s market or grocery store will probably have plenty of examples.

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Fun Way to Use Sea Glass to Teach Your Kids About God

What Sea Glass Can Teach Your Kids About God - Parenting Like HannahSo many concepts in the Bible are difficult for children to understand. All young children (and many older children) are concrete thinkers. When they read scriptures talking about God using a “refiner’s fire” (Zechariah 13:9 and more), they may believe God literally uses fire somehow. Even though the references to God as the potter and us as His clay (Isaiah 64:8) are a bit more concrete, they can still confuse children, who may wonder how they are clay.

Sometimes actually showing children items and explaining them in more depth can help them process metaphors and analogies in the Bible a bit more easily. When you think of all of those scriptures and others like them, there is a basic underlying concept. Because we – in this case your children – are born as babies into a fallen world, we aren’t fully yet what God created us to be.

God sends circumstances and people, gives us the Bible, and at baptism the Holy Spirit to help us grow to become more like His image in which we were created. What better example for that than sea glass?

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Fun Activities to Teach Your Kids About Prayer

Fun Activities to Teach Your Kids About Prayer - Parenting Like Hannah

I would guess of all the things Christian parents do at home to build faith foundations, the most consistent is teaching kids to pray. For many families though, the instruction stops after teaching kids how to say a couple of rote prayers like “God is Great” or “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep”. To have a rich, full, active prayer life, there are a few more things you to need to teach your children.

Fortunately, prayer is extremely concrete in many ways. There are a lot of fun things you can do with your kids to teach them some prayer concepts and to help them develop good prayer habits. Here are a few of my favorites:

    • Praying Colors: This activity is great for the very youngest of children. Cut up little pieces of paper in different colors. Then when you pray as a family, have each person draw a slip of paper. They then need to thank God for something that is that color. So if your child pulled a green slip of paper, he may decide to thank God for frogs. This activity is great for kids who aren’t quite old enough to easily think of things for which they need to pray. It also reinforces the concept that all good things are from God – even frogs!
    • Prayer Jars: Find empty, clean containers of any sort. It can be a jar or a juice can (make sure all rough edges are removed and small children have unbreakable containers). Encourage your kids to decorate their containers. Then give them slips of paper or wide craft sticks. Talk with them about all of the different types of things they might want to share with God in their prayers. Have them write each type of thing on a separate slip of paper or craft stick. Then when it’s time to pray, they can pull as many as they want out of their container to remind them of something they can share with God. This activity is great for all kids, but especially those transitioning to their own more private prayer life. It helps them to remember that the entire time in prayer shouldn’t be about them giving God some sort of to-do list of everything they personally want from Him. It encourages them to make their prayers a little broader and less selfish.

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