So I read Psalm 67 to my kids this morning for devotions. I got them to close their eyes and just reflect on what was being said. I read the passage to them 3 times, and then got them to tell me what this Psalm meant to each of them.
Thoughts ranged from, “I reckon this Psalm would sound cool with some music like drums or something”… OK, not quite the answer I was looking for. We push on. I asked them to really think about what they thought Verse 2 meant for them:
“I think King David wanted people to know God. Not just know Him in their heads but to really love Him in their hearts.”
“God really wants to save people.”
Cool. Now we’re thinking a bit more. Pat-on-the-back to you guys.
We’ve been focusing on East Timor lately, just because I was telling them about the 40hour Famine and it seemed like the perfect country to create some missions focus. I wanted my kids to know that they were so unbelievably blessed and that we needed to think, pray and act on behalf of others in need. We’ve talked about the poverty there, what it looks like and if it could be prevented. When I read Verses 5 – 7 to them, some responded by saying:
“I think that maybe if East Timor prayed to God more and worshiped him more then maybe they would have more crops and more food and stuff would be better there?”
Yeh, maybe that’s exactly what they/we need to do. I know that this morning I was reminded that God loves prayer and praise. That He wants to richly bless us – we just need to open our mouths and sing, pray, praise. God wants to hear it!
We ended the devotion by praying pop corn prayers (each student says a quick prayer) – it was awesome. Here are some I remembered because all 28 prayed 🙂
“God, thank you we have breakfast, recess, lunch and dinner. I pray the East Timor kids get recess too.”
“Dear Lord, thank you for our country. We’re really blessed with awesome houses.”
“Dear Lord I pray that you will help everyone to remember to praise you because you like it when we do.”
Amen.
– Amanda Tan