Today’s Reading:
Read Habakkuk 1:1-7,12-13; 2:1-4,20;3:1-6,13-19
Parents- play a game of Simon Says. Start out with easy, traditional instructions to follow! As the parent, give out instructions that may seem crazy but see if your kids will follow the instructions. (For instance, Simon Says, “Jump up and down 100 times.”)
When you played Simon Says, did you always trust what your parents were telling you to do? Did you follow directions, even if the instructions sounded crazy? Sometimes it is hard to decide to do something when we don’t understand why we are being asked to do it.
Habakkuk was a prophet who lived in the final days of Israel’s Southern Kingdom (Judah). Can you name all the prophets we have read about so far? (Elijah, Elisha, Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Nahum, and Zephaniah) God used these prophets to deliver specific messages to His people. Habakkuk was no different! God had a message for the people of Judah, and he told Habakkuk to write it down so it could be shared with the people of Judah.
Surprisingly, God’s message was that He was going to use the nation of Babylon to bring down the nation of Judah. Habakkuk did not understand this message because Babylon was not a nation that honored God. Habakuk questioned how God could use a nation that was evil to ultimately bring good for the people of Judah. Even though Babylon would bring Judah down, God’s message was that eventually, this would bring the people of Judah (and all of Israel) back to Him.
Habakkuk questioned God, but in the end, Habakkuk showed that he also trusted God! Read Habakuk 3:18-19.
“….yet I will celebrate in the Lord; I will rejoice in the God of my salvation! The Lord my Lord is my strength…”
Habakkuk showed great faith by trusting in God’s plan, even though he did not understand it.
Application/Prayer:
Thank God for being trustworthy and faithful! Spend some time discussing how we can trust God even when what he is doing doesn’t make sense right now. Remember. when God asks us to do hard things, we can trust Him because we know that He wants what is best for us.
August Memory Verse:
“Listen, Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
Using the daily reading prompts from George H. Guthrie’s Read the Bible for Life, here’s how to use this devotional:
- Bring your Bible! Your kids need to see that everything you are reading to them or learning about comes from an actual Bible!
- Each day starts with a reading prompt. Read the selection as a family. If your kids are readers, encourage them to read along with you.
- After you’ve read the passage, read the short devotional thought that goes along with each passage.
- Prayer and application are important any time we read God’s word! After each devotional, there is a challenge to help apply what your family has read that day.
- There is a reading for six days of the week. The last reading of the week is a Gospel Conversation Prompt to help you connect the reading from the week with God’s plan for salvation.
Other Resources:
August memory verse coloring sheet
August Fill-in the blank activity