This devotional is not created to replace a Bible Reading plan or your personal daily connection time with the Lord. Instead, they are meant to be a short, easy time of connection between both your family and the Lord. If you’d like, read the entirety of the scripture focus as a family. You can do this out of a “regular” version of the Bible, or you can find it in a Children’s Bible. In either case, I encourage you to find a version that you are comfortable with and is easy to understand for you and your children. If your children are old enough, have them read along in their own Bibles! If the reading is too long, you can do the devotional by reading only the verse highlight instead.
Also, it can be helpful to reiterate the value for the Bible each time you read from it, as well as ask the Lord to speak to you and help you to understand and know Him. You can do this through a simple prayer like this, “Thank you Lord for giving us your words in the Bible. We know that your words are true. Please help us to understand them. Help us to know you and your ways and live according to them. Amen.”
Scripture Focus: Genesis 1-2
Verse Highlight: Genesis 1:31 “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”
Introduction Question: What is something in your life that you would describe as “very good”?
Discussion: It’s hard, if not impossible, to imagine what it would have been like to witness the creation of the world. Most of us have made something in our lives—a picture perhaps or a lego building. When we cook, we take ingredients and form them into an entirely new dish or product. But, we all start with something. Art materials, ingredients, blocks, and so on. It is beyond our understanding to make something from nothing. Yet, that is exactly what God did! The Bible tells us that God created everything out of nothing. He spoke and out of His words life came! He spoke the earth and all that is in it—plants, animals, the sea, and dry land—into being. He spoke and the earth and planets and stars were born. He spoke and time itself was created! All the Lord had to do was speak and things came into existence. That is difficult to understand, but it helps us to know how powerful the Lord actually is!
And, no only that, but when He was done, everything God was created was very good. Nothing God created was not good. This is because God is powerful, but (thankfully!) He is also good! His ideas are good. His ways are good. And his Because of this, we can trust Him.
One last thing: Just like God created the world around us, He created people! In fact, it was people that He created in His own image. That means that He created each of us to be like Him. Because of this, we should have great value for ourselves and others because we all were created in the image of a God who is both powerful and good.
What is one way you see the goodness of God in the people in our family? What is one way you see the goodness of God in the way you were created?
Closing Activity: Close in prayer together. Have each person in your family thank the Lord for the person on their right.
Bonus Activity: Color the giraffe coloring page and share the following facts about the way that they were created.
Did you know that scientist can’t figure out how giraffes were created? In fact, each giraffe can be considered a mini miracle! This is because of the way their heart pressure works. Your heart pumps blood through your whole body. This is important because blood carries nutrients that your body needs. The force your heart is pumping with helps to determine your blood pressure. A giraffe needs high blood pressure to get blood all the way around its body. Do you know why? Because it has such a long neck! If it didn’t have high enough blood pressure, the blood would not make it up to its head. So, it makes sense that God would create the giraffe to have high blood pressure. But, there is one thing that could be a big problem. In order to drink water, giraffes need to bend down. Because of their high blood pressure, when they bend down, this could (and should!) cause them problems! In fact, with their rate of blood pressure, it their heads could be expected to explode when they bend down! Yet, we don’t hear about exploding giraffes. (And, if it were to happen, we can be sure that not only would we hear about it, but there would probably be some viral videos, too.) We also don’t hear about fainting giraffes. Have you ever gotten light headed when you stand up real fast? This is related to your blood pressure and your body adjusting as you go from sitting to standing. This is the miracle part: God created giraffes so that their blood pressure would adjust so that they could safely bend down to drink water and then stand back up without problems, but no one can figure out how He did this! Scientist are starting to understand a little, but they still have a long way to go to decoding this mystery. Yet, God easily created this unique and beautiful animal. This is because God is much smarter than we are. He is powerful. He is smart. And He is good. He created giraffes and all the rest of the animals and world, even people! So when we look around us we can see God’s beauty, wisdom and creativity.