Family Devotional / Day 1 Gratitude

Read Joshua 4:1-3 & 6-7

After the whole nation had gone across the Jordan River, the Lord spoke to Joshua. He said, “Choose 12 men from among the people. Choose one from each tribe. Tell them to get 12 stones from the middle of the river. They must pick them up from right where the priests stood. They must carry the stones over with all of you. And they must put them down at the place where you will stay tonight.”

The stones will serve as a reminder to you. In days to come, your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ Tell them that the Lord cut off the flow of water in the Jordan River. Tell them its water stopped flowing when the ark of the covenant of the Lord went across. The stones will always remind the Israelites of what happened there.”

God made a way for the Israelites to cross the Jordan River. He then told them to make a reminder of what He had done.

Talk about it: Have you ever seen something really cool...then forgot about it? Or received an awesome Christmas present...but cannot remember what it was now? Ask your kids if they can remember any of their favorite Christmas presents from last year.

It is really easy to forget. So God made a way for the Israelites to remember! Whenever they saw the stones, they would remember how God helped them. This would be a reminder for them, but also a prompt for them to tell the story to their kids and grandkids and so on so that the story would never be forgotten. We still get to hear about this story today because Joshua eventually wrote it down for us!

Define it: We are going to be spending a few weeks learning and growing together! This week, we are learning about the word GRATITUDE. Ask if your kids already know what it means. Gratitude is the feeling of thankfulness that leads you to action.

The Israelites were thankful that God helped them, so they obeyed His request to stack up the stones.

We have so much for which to be thankful to God! We are going to talk more about that next time. But for today, we have a rock. We are going to write the word gratitude on our rock and set it somewhere we will see it and be reminded that God helps us! When you see the rock, simply say the prayer, “God, thank You!”