Vegetables (Daniel's Days 1)

Woohoo we are off! I love having some extra time with my kiddos this summer. I want to make sure we don't forget to spend some of that time learning about Jesus Christ, and his word. My kids are getting old enough to help out planning "Bible Time" and have favorite stories they want to study more in depth. Von (age 9) wants to study Daniel, and Alyse (age 6) wants to learn more about Esther. Knox (age 3) is along for the ride :)

Before we started reading Daniel, we went through a little background on why the Israelites were living in Babylon. The Action Bible has a good couple of stories before Daniel recounting Israel's turning to other God's and God allowing them to be taken captive. Daniel 1 opens with Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego living in the palace in Babylon and being trained by King Nebuchadnezzar's men. These four Israelite young men are given the "awesome privilege" of eating and learning like Babylonion noblemen. In today's story they are given choice food from the King's table. However, the four Israelites know that the King's food has been dedicated to the Babylonian Idols, and is unclean for them to eat. Therefore they ask to eat only vegetables and water. The King's servants are afraid they will not be healthy enough but agree to their request for a ten day trial period. At the end of the ten days, the Israelites are found to be in stellar condition. God's instructions really were for their benefit.

We used fruit/veggies to paint this time. If you do not want to use actual food you can easily use celery stalks that would otherwise be thrown away or any kind of tree/bush limb. It is simply fun for the kids to paint using something unusual. As they paint, review the story. Be sure to help them understand the point of the story is not actually to "eat your vegetables" (although they ARE good for you,) but the point is that obedience to God's ways are actually for OUR good.

THE POINT: God's instructions are SO much better for us, trust him

David has mercy again (deeds of David day 14)

Today's story spanned I Samuel 26, 28, and 31. Basically it was a narrative of Saul chasing David and trying to kill him, and David escaping. Not only did David get away, he also had the chance to kill Saul again, but refused to kill the Lord's anointed. Once when Saul's army was asleep, David entered the camp. David took Saul's spear and water jug and left the camp. In the morning David pointed out to Saul the fact that he had spared Saul's life. This story, beginning on page 300 of The Action Bible, also covers Saul consulting the witch of Endor, and Saul's death.

We talked about God's instruction not to play with magic and then we played a game to act out Saul asleep in the camp. One person pretended to be asleep on the rug. Before the sleeper closed their eyes, we placed a few items around them. After "Saul" was "asleep," "David" quietly crept in and removed one or more objects from "Saul." When the sleeper woke, their job was to figure out what had been removed. It was harder than we thought it would be. You can easily modify the game according to the ages of your kids. You can simply move the objects or remove and hide them.

the point? God will complete his promises in his time.

Summer 2011!

I am so excited to have my kids back (out of school!) This summer I am planning on going through the life of David with the kids. I hope to get a little more detailed than usual, and learn so much more about God and how he interacts with his people. I recently ordered The Action Bible, God's Redemptive Story. It is published by David C. Cook and has 200+ Bible stories all written and illustrated in comic book form. My 8 year old son especially loves this new storybook Bible, and the 5 and 2 year old like it as well. We will be using it a lot to read the stories about King David. I hope you enjoy this time with your kids, and make it count!