Exercise

It’s time to get outside in God’s beautiful world!

“You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.
Nehemiah 9:6

I love all the seasons, but especially the warmer ones.  I am looking forward to spending lots of time outside.  As you experience the beauty of God’s creation during this season, please remember to share with your children that it IS God’s creation.  Lead them to praise Him. Make up songs about it.  Here’s one suggestion:

https://youtu.be/AbWgeJOMQ4U

Hopefully you will get to take a family trip this summer, maybe to the beach to get sand between your toes. To The Sea by Callie Grant is a book about a day at the beach that young children will enjoy.  The pictures by Jeremy Tugeau make you almost able to smell the sea air. (The author’s mission is to encourage and equip parents to effectively teach their kids about God and His creation, even at a very young age.) (Check out some of her other books on this site here.) In the book the sand castle is washed away by the sea, but the boy builds one on a rock and it stands safe. Play in the sand and tell this parable from Matthew 7:24-29.

Even if you can’t get away this summer, take advantage of every opportunity around you to enjoy God’s beautiful world with your children.  Jesus used visuals from nature as he taught.
Read Matthew 6:25-33 and be ready to share His teachings the next time you are outside observing birds or looking at flowers.

Hike, explore, play in the sand. Start collecting things from nature – moss, feathers, shells, rocks, leaves, seeds, an abandoned bird’s nest or wasp nest.  Make a nature box full of items you can enjoy all year.  And don’t forget to point out that all God’s creation praise Him!

All your works praise you, LORD; your faithful people extol you.
Psalm 145:10

Nature Box
Nature Box

Side Note: Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says to speak of God and His word as we go.  Everything doesn’t have to be related to a Bible verse, but as you discover things on your nature walk you could say, “Think of the wonders of God” (Job 37:14) or “all God’s works praise Him” (Psalm 145:10)

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Exercise With Your Child

…for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.
1 Cor. 6:20

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Have you ever been given a flower picked by a child?  We say ‘Aww, thank you’, then we lay it down and forget about it.  But the child will come back later to see if you still have the flower –  to see if you valued the gift enough to care for it.

In the same way, God has given us our bodies and He wants to see that we value the gift enough to care for it.  Eric Velazquez aptly puts it this way: “Our bodies are exquisite and unparalleled works of art. Formed from the dirt in His own garden, each for a unique purpose. And like flowers handed to you by a child, they were given to us with an expectation of continued care. How we express gratitude for our bodies doesn’t just matter to us. It matters, perhaps more than we’ll ever know, to the One who gifted them in the first place.”

Let’s be examples to our children of valuing the bodies that God has given us and training our children to value theirs as well.   One way to do that is to exercise and  I have found that children love to exercise with you.  Here’s an idea to get yall going:

Make a simple cube out of card stock and write different movements on each side such as jumping jacks, hop on one foot, touch your toes, march like a soldier, hop like a bunny, crawl like a bug, etc.  Take turns throwing the cube and doing the movement that is showing.

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(Click Cube pattern then print, cut on solid lines, fold on dotted lines, and tape together)

This is a simple way for you and your children to have fun exercising together.  Be sure to share the verse as you explain that by exercising you honor God by caring for the bodies He has given you. 

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