The Letter "M"

This week's family time verse started with the letter M.

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they know me." John 10:27

We enjoyed our dancing and verse memorization. We recited the verse fast, sssslllllooooowww, like robots, all 'm' sounds, and then like robots again. Then J and A each said the verse all by themselves. A has really improved her memorization skills.

Next, we played a version of hide-n-seek. Mom went upstairs into a hiding spot. Instead of sitting quietly, she softly said words that describe God. J and A searched for awhile before remembering that if they would just listen to hear her voice it would be easy to find her. Dad provided some distraction with annoying singing to drive home the point that we need to listen and avoid distractions if we want to hear the still small voice. J and A each had a turn to hide and speak softly also. Dad went last and by then J and A had the system down. They got to the top of the stairs and stopped to listen right away. When mom was talking, they knew right away that she needed to be quiet in order to hear Dad's voice. It was easy after that.

The whole family went back to the basement to debrief and review the activity. J has a school play coming up that makes him quite nervous. Dad asked him, "Can you run faster than a car?, jump up to an airplane?, shovel all the snow off the whole yard?" Of course each was answered with a strong NO. The final question was, "Can you stand in front of a group of people and sing?" Of course he answered, "NO," again. Then we read the story of Jesus and Peter walking on the water. In that story, Peter does the impossible because he listened to Jesus. Dad then asked J if he might be able to sing in the play with God's help. He smiled and nodded.

Hopefully Josiah will not become over confident in his own abilities but a spirit of fear is also not honoring to the Lord. We pray he develops humble confidence in the ounce of ability God has given him and the power of God to take care of the result. Peter had the ability to walk but Jesus took Peter's unimpressive ability and made it a miraculous reality. Could He do the same with all of us? today?

** Dan has lovingly been writing about our Family Time's each week while the kids and I color about what we talked about that night.