TLIC FAMILY. DAY 28. JANUARY 28: INTO THE WILDERNESS.

THINK TOGETHER

What is a desert like? Can you describe it?

READ TOGETHER

Life isn’t always easy, but God is always with us. This is the lesson the Hebrews learned after they were rescued by God out of slavery in Egypt. What happened after God parted the Red Sea is very surprising. After God did all those great miracles and rescued his people from the evil Pharaoh, we might expect him to lead them straight home to the Promised Land (Do you remember what the Promised Land was?). But God didn’t do that. Instead, he led his people into the desert. Into a place without food and without water. How long can you go without eating? Without drinking? The Bible says that the Hebrews went three days into the desert without water. Listen to how their journey is described here in Exodus:

Exodus 15:22-25. ²² Then…Israel…went three days in the wilderness and found no water. ²³ When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water because it was bitter…²⁴ And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” 

Do you ever grumble or complain about things? Why do we complain and grumble? Because we forget that God is still with us, even when things are hard. You see God wants to use difficulties to teach us to trust him more and love other people more than we love ourselves. God wants to use the times that we don’t get what we want to remind us to be thankful for what he has already given us. But mostly God wants to use the times that we don’t get what we want to help us to want more of Jesus instead of more of whatever that other thing is (even if it’s a good thing).

Life with Jesus isn’t always going to be easy. But Jesus can take the hard things in our lives and use them to teach us to be more like him. More kind. More caring. More sharing. More trusting. God wants us to learn to trust that because Jesus died for our sins, we can trust that one day he will turn everything hard into something great.

Because of Jesus we know that God will use all the hard things in life to help us trust him more.

With Jesus we don’t have to complain when things don’t go our way.

DO SOMETHING TOGETHER

Do you have a chore chart? If not hand out some chores for the day/week. See if you can do your chores without complaining? Talk about what lessons we learn from doing chores.

PRAY TOGETHER

Jesus, I know that life isn’t always easy but that you are always with me. Help me to remember this each time a feel like complaining. Amen.