This year for the Christmas Advent Season my family is doing the normal Sunday Advent devotional, but adding to that by trying hard to continue the theme throughout the week with my kids. On the first Sunday of Advent we talked about hope. Two kinds of hope; the hope that those felt for a redeemer waiting for Christ to come, and the hope that we feel for everyday since he has come.
Isaiah 60:1 Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
2 For behold, darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will be seen upon you.
3 And nations shall come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your rising.
We talked with the kids about the differences between hoping and wishing, and kept it short enough that the kids paid attention for most of the 5 minutes. But this year I challenged them to think about HOPE all week long. I’ve reminded them all week before school to be thinking and looking for examples of hope. So this week we’ve talked Star Wars “A New Hope”, we’ve talked about hoping that mom will put cookies in our lunch boxes, we’ve talked about how we hope that it snows this week, and everynight before bed I’ve reminded the kids that we can have real hope in Christ. We don’t have to wish for it, we are given real-life changing hope.
One of the things I found online this week was this great video, which helped illustrate further the idea that we have something inside of us that longs for Hope. See if you can use it with your family this week to start some discussion as well.
