Remembering All That God Has Done For Us

Supplies: Bible, Medium Sized Rock
Gather the supplies above and bring your family together for the Bible time.

Opening: To start your time together, ask each person to tell their favorite memory/story of a family trip or vacation.

What to say: Those were some great stories. What are some things that we keep to help us remember special trips or vacations? (allow for responses and affirm their responses)

The Bible talks about a story where God wanted His people to remember something very important. In the Old Testament, the Bible tells of a time when God’s people (Israel) had lived through a very difficult time. They had been slaves in Egypt but God delivered them through a series of miracles that caused the people holding them as slaves to not only let them go, but even gave them gifts of clothing, silver and gold as they left. The people of Egypt began to reconsider having let the people of God go and decided to chase them down to take them back as slaves, but God delivered his people by causing a huge sea to stand back and allow God’s people to escape on dry land. It then came back together to stop the people of Egypt.

Even after these amazing things that God had done for His people, they grumbled and complained against God. They disobeyed God’s laws, so that instead of being able to go the easy way to the land that God wanted to give them, they had to wander in the desert for 40 years while they learned to trust and obey God. 40 years is a really long time. Sometimes the people were hungry. Sometimes they were thirsty. Even though grumbled and complained, God always took care of them.

When it was finally time for the people of Israel to enter the land that God had promised to them, they had to cross a river. They didn’t have a boat to cross in, but God caused the water to stop flowing and pile up on one side like a wall while all of the people of Israel passed through on dry land. Their leader, Joshua, told twelve men to go back to the middle of the dry riverbed and for each of them to pick up a stone so that they could make something to remember what God had done.

Read Joshua 4:4-8 together.

Why would Joshua want the people to remember this day? (allow for responses) How would the stones help them remember? (allow for responses)

Joshua knew that these people had a bad habit of forgetting what God had done for them. As they wandered through the desert, they would often doubt that God could even help them when things got hard. But now, every time the people of Israel saw these stones, they could remember the day when God stopped the water so that they could enter the land that He had promised to give them. When children asked their parents why there was a pile of stones, their parents could explain to them how God always cares for them and that it is important to trust and obey Him.

Sharing: Share with one another a time when God did something big for you. It could be when you accepted Christ as Savior, an answered prayer or when He did something unexpected for you.

Consider making your own rock garden to remember special ways that God has taken care of you and your family. Pray to Him now and thank Him for all that He has done for you.

//Heather McAfee