One piece of the puzzle

Parent Introduction:  We live in scary times.  But then again, when have times not been scary.  Open the bible to most any story and you will read of scary times.  This is nothing new, but fear can overwhelm all of us, no matter what age we are.  Scripture tells us that when we remember who our God is, that is He sovereign over ALL things, over all circumstances, over all people,  we actually have nothing to fear.

One Piece of the Puzzle is a reminder to us that we should not lean on our own understanding of our circumstances, but should trust in the Lord.  God knows and sees all things, we can only see a small piece of his big picture, just one piece of a very big puzzle.

In this devotion we will be looking at the story of Joseph.  The story is long, and can take approximately 15-20 minutes to read out loud.  For this reason, I suggest using a children’s bible or storybook bible if this is too long for your children. I would especially recommend using The Jesus Storybook Bible.  If your family does not have this bible, I cannot recommend it enough. 

In the opening activity you will need several puzzle pieces. It is important that your child not be familiar with the puzzle pieces given out, so use as small a puzzle piece as possible and a puzzle your child is not familiar with.  Each family member will need a piece.  Select pieces that do not go together, and if possible are very different colors.  Do not pick any pieces that clearly show a picture of what they are.   

Materials You Will Need: 

·         Bible, or children’s story bible which includes the story of Joseph.

·         Puzzle – preselect a puzzle piece for each family member

·         3 colors of crayons, pens or colored pencils 

·         Scissors

·         1 piece of paper

Opening activity: Give each member of your family a piece of a puzzle.

Discussion Questions:
1. What is your piece a picture of?
2. Is your puzzle piece a whole picture or just a piece of a puzzle?
3.  Pretend for a minute that your puzzle piece is the whole puzzle. It is a one piece puzzle.  What is the picture? 
4. Does the picture make any sense?
5.  Try to put together all the puzzle pieces that your family has.  What is the picture of?  Does it make sense?

It is silly to look at one puzzle piece or even  a handful of them and think we can know what the whole puzzle is.  One puzzle piece is not its own picture, it is a piece in a bigger picture.  Our lives can be like these little puzzle pieces.  We can look at something happening in our life right now and say, “this doesn’t make any sense!”  We can find ourselves asking, “Why did this happen?”  “Why did God allow this to happen? 

 Discussion Question:

·         Can you think of a situation that is either happening now or has happened recently that seems frightening or bad?  It can be happening to your family, or in the world such as a hurricane or fire.   Take time to discuss that situation(s).

We can point to several situations going on and not understand them.  But each of these situations is like our puzzle piece.  They are just one part of a bigger picture.  Scripture tells us that God is sovereign over all things.  Sovereign means that He has full knowledge and control.  Proverbs 3:5-6 says: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. 

·         What does it mean to lean on your own understanding?

To lean on our own understand is to think we can understand everything that happens.  Of course we can’t.  It is like looking at your one puzzle piece and thinking you can understand what the whole puzzle will be.  God on the other hand has all the puzzle pieces, He is the only one who knows the whole picture, which is why we are told to trust in the Lord and not lean on our own understanding.

When we read stories from the bible, we can see pictures of how God used situations, like puzzle pieces, to come together for His Glory and often the good of the person in the story.  We are going to read the story of Joseph.  While the story is being read,  think about how the different events in Joseph’s life must have made him feel while they were happening. 

Reading:  Jesus Storybook Bible “A Forgiving Prince,” other children’s bible telling of the story of Joseph, or Genesis 37, 39:1 - 46:4.

Family Activity:  Many things happened in this story.  Many individual things that were not very nice for Joseph or his father and brothers. 

1.       Write down each of the individual events that happened in this story.  Write them out separately on one a sheet of paper so that the entire piece of paper is used.  You should have at least 6 events.  Use one color pen for things that happened to Joseph and a different one for his father or brothers. 

2.       Cut your paper into pieces around each of the things you wrote down.  Make sure every piece of paper that is cut out has something written on it. (No scraps)

3.        Spread out the pieces around your table so everyone can see them.  Mix them up. 

4.       Discuss some or all of the individual things that happened in this story.  They were sad, especially for Joseph.  How would Joseph must have felt during these times. 

5.       After your discussion, put your paper back together. 

6.       Discuss the story of Joseph as a whole picture.  Did God mean good or bad for Joseph and his family?

Joseph and his family faced many trials, but because of those trials Joseph was put in a situation to help his brothers and all their families when the famine came to Canaan.  Joseph put his trust in the Lord and not in his own understanding of what was going on.  Because of that, Joseph was able to say to his brothers, “And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here. Because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.” Genesis 45:5.  In the middle of all those situations, God never left Joseph or his father or brothers, He was working out a bigger plan.

Just as God never left Joseph or his family, He will not leave our family.  That is why we must remember Proverbs 3:5-6.  Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. 

Prayer:  Close your family devotion time in prayer.  Pray for the ability to trust in God for the situation that you discussed at the beginning of your devotion time.  Praise God for being a good and sovereign God who works together all things for good. 

Just for Fun: Pour out the puzzle that the opening activity pieces came from and finish the puzzle.  It will be a great reminder that God is pulling the pieces of your life together into a beautiful picture. 

Am I teaching my kids a fairy tale, again?

I am struggling to figure out how to explain the Christian genocide going on in Iraq to my girls.
We don't watch the news at our house.  I shelter my girls by choice, because I don't believe that their is much value in daily doses of stories of rape, murder, and war when you are 8 years old.  But my friend asked me to help her know how to explain to her sons what is going on in Iraq with our Christian brothers and sisters.  I had no advice for her, because I haven't explained it to my girls yet.

Photo Credit: Washington Post Aug 8, 2014

 I wanted to avoid this topic because it saddens and terrifies me on very deep levels, but the Lord has prompted my heart that I can't ignore this and I am doing a disservice to my girls by keeping it from them.  As I started to wrestle with this, several posting I had shared in the summer of 2012 came to mind.  I will be reposting them this week, with a new posting at the end of the week about our brothers and sisters in Iraq.

Am I teaching my kids a fairy tale?  

(originally posted summer of 2012)

My Facebook news feed and my heart are both full today of the sad news of Colorado’s many forest fires.  The images coming out of Colorado are truly unbelievable. 

photo credit: cathywaltersphotography

My girls are attending VBS this week.  Last night at dinner Emily told us the saying of the day was “Amazing!  God’s power over all circumstances!”

Amazing, I thought to myself.  I know this week our home church in Denver is doing the same VBS, as are many others.   I praise God for teaching kids all over Colorado this week this simple truth. 

  God is powerful over all circumstances.

But it made me wonder, am I teaching this truth at home?  God is powerful over all circumstances.  In fires, and floods, illness and death, am I teaching my children that God is in those circumstances? 

A few years ago my aunt and I were talking about faith.  She said, “When I was raising my kids I told them a fairy tale version of God, but when life got tough they didn’t believe the fairy tale anymore, and they didn’t believe in God either.” 

I knew just what she meant by a " fairy tale version of God".  We tell our kids the story of the animals God protected on the Ark, how Daniel was just fine in the den and baby Jesus came to help us all go to Heaven.  How does the saying go ... a partial truth is a whole lie? 

When Sarah was three she asked me what happened to the animals that didn’t get on the ark.  I told her they swam. 

Why was I afraid to tell her the truth?   Was I afraid that she couldn’t love a God that saved two giraffes and drowned the rest?  Did I think that I could hide death, could hide the fallen state of our world from her?

At nine, I can’t convince Sarah that the rest of the animals swam, but what other fairy tales am I selling her in the place of true knowledge of God? 

When I teach her to pray for situations burdening her heart am I teaching her to approach God as the Great I Am, or a genie in a bottle?  If I only teach her to pray to God with the power of wishing on a star, when her house burns down or washes away who will she think God is? 

It was not a fairy tale faith that allowed Job after losing all his children and wealth in a day fall to the ground and worship the Lord saying, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” 

After enduring financial ruin and the loss of his son in the Great Chicago Fire and then losing his daughters in a shipwreck, it was not a fairy tale faith that prompted Horatio Spafford to pen these words in the famous hymn It is Well with my Soul:

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul

As much as I wish I could hand my girls a fairy tale world to live in, I have only the real one to offer.   What a shame it would be to sell them short with a fairy tale faith, when we have such an amazing God.  They'll need to know the truth (or as much of it as this poor mind can pass on) of an awesome God who is in control of all things, even the things that look out of control.  Of a good God who is working all things together for HIS good, even the bits that are very, very bad.  And of a saving God who has promised us citizenship in a much, much better world to come. 

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.”  John 16:33

 photo credit: www.9news.com

I Love You to God and Back by Amanda Lamb - Book Review

As a reviewer with Booksneeze.com I was given an opportunity to read the newly released book I Love You to God and Back by Amanda Lamb published by Thomas Nelson.  Here Goes.

Amanda Lamb and her daughter Chloe, age 6, set out to record 100 nights of her bedtime prayers.  These prayers and Amanda’s reflections make up I Love You to God and Back.  I have to admit this book did not end up being the book I set out to read.  I was looking to gain some parenting insight on how to make my own girls’ nightly prayer time more meaningful.  This is not what this book does.  The author is not a theologian and this is not an expert's how-to book.  But the author is quite upfront about that from the onset,

I’m a regular mother who wanted to give her daughter a love of God.  Yet, with no special skills or theological background, and with as many questions about faith as answers, I felt ill equipped to be her guide.  But slowly I started to discover that she was my guide.   - I Love You to God and Back by Amanda Lamb

Once I realized what the book is really about there were aspects that I greatly appreciated, namely Chloe.  This is a book about Chloe, who she is, what she cares about, and how she sees God’s role in her life.  She is a grateful child whose nighttime prayers document the small and large gifts of the day.  Chloe thanks God for friends, riding her bike without training wheels, candy, movies and always her family.  But after reading about 20 of her prayers I started to feel annoyed that Chloe’s prayers were one dimensional and repetitive.   That same night God allowed me to hear, really hear my own prayer.  I heard myself unloading to God my laundry list of worry for friends and family.   Cancer, strokes, divorces, financial fears … on and on I droned with none of the gratitude that Chloe’s prayers showed.  Maybe I had something to learn here.  I know I am not alone in this, I think it's a common condition of the adult heart.  The author sums up this thought beautifully:

For some reason, as adults it is easy to forget that everything that happens that makes us smile is worthy of a thank-you to God.  Children adopt this concept so readily, but it’s not as easy for us.  So as I watch her effortlessly give God praise for everything from unicorns to underwear, I am transported back to my own childhood when thankfulness came easy, and quite often. - I Love You to God and Back by Amanda Lamb

If you are like me, and need some reminding to live in gratitude, you too may have lessons to learn from this pint-sized Ann Voskamp.  Chloe’s prayers have challenged me to change my nighttime routine.  To be intentional in praising God for who He is and the smiles He has provided each day.  It’s an important lesson to taught (or reminded again and again). 

I have tree planted right outside my office window. Yesterday a bird landed in it.  He perched close to the window and stayed a while, looking in at me with wondering eyes.  I immediately thought to myself, “Chloe would thank God for this bird,” and so I did. 

“I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” Luke 18: 17