This month we have done a daily advent reading and activity with Finn. I’ve felt for some time that Finn was ready to learn about the gospel on a deeper level—especially considering the constant sin struggles he has demonstrated lately—and I decided that the advent season would provide a good opportunity to do it. It’s been really good. Finn is pretty absent minded in general, and hasn’t demonstrated a ton of interest or curiosity about spiritual things, but he seems to be getting some of it.
We’re using an advent art challenge that goes along with John Piper’s “Good News of Great Joy” pamphlet. Each day Derek and I read Piper’s devotional, and we do the children’s one with Finn. Additionally I’ve added a special activity that goes with each day. Some of the activities are fun and light-hearted, and others are more spiritually deep.
Advent Day 1 - We read about John the Baptist’s ministry of preparing people’s hearts for Jesus’ coming. We made a snowflake ornament out of popsickle sticks and wrote several things Jesus has done for us on the sticks. Finn wrote things like “God made everything,” “God made transformers,” and “God gave us hot glue guns.”
Advent Day 2 - We read the story of the angel coming to Mary and we sang praises to God as a family. One of the songs we sang was Chris Tomlin’s, “My Soul Magnifies the Lord,” which comes from Mary’s song of praise.
Advent Day 3 - We read about how God’s people had been waiting for centuries for a Savior to come. We talked about how we too are waiting for Jesus to come at His second coming, just like we are waiting for Christmas to come. We made a chain out of christmasy paper to count down the days until Christmas, and talked about how no one knows how many days it will be until Christ’s return.
Advent Day 4 - We read about the journey to Bethlehem that Mary and Joseph made, and how they were acting in obedience to God even though the journey was difficult and they had to stay in a stable. We talked about how we, too, must obey God both with our feet (going where God tells us to go) and with our hands (doing what God tells us to do). We made hand and foot prints with paint on canvases.
Advent Day 5 - We read about Jesus’ birth and talked about how Jesus gave up heaven to be born in a lowly stable in a broken world of sinners. We told Finn that on this day we were going to practice giving something up for someone else since Jesus gave up so much for us. We suggested that Finn give up one of his stuffed animals for his baby sister. Finn liked this idea and went with it.
Advent Day 6 - We read about the Angels’ announcement of Jesus’ birth to the shepherds, and talked about how we are called to announce the good new of Jesus’ salvation to people. We made Christmas cards announcing Jesus’ birth for all of Finn’s classmates at preschool. I wrote “Merry Christmas” and “Christ is born” (in Spanish-since all his classmates are Spanish speakers) and Finn decorated the cards with stickers, shiny paper scraps, and crayons.
Advent Day 7 - We read about the wise men and looked at a map of the world to show Finn where Jesus was born, and what direction the wise men came from. We talked about how Jesus came for people all over the world, and looked at pictures of people from different countries. We talked about how missionaries like us travel to different parts of the world to tell them the good news of Jesus since He came for everyone.
Advent Day 8 - We read about the star that the wise men followed to find Jesus, and we made our own gold star (with cardboard and shiny gold wrapping paper) and we hid it in the house for Finn to find. This was fun and Finn really enjoyed it.
Advent Day 9 - We read about King Herod’s anger and talked about how there are many kings in the world like Herod (some good and some bad), but Jesus is the true king of the whole world. We read “The Christmas Promise” by Alison Mitchell.
Advent Day 10 - We read about the Wise Men’s gifts for Jesus and made Christmas cookies to give as gifts to our friends.
Advent Day 11 - We read about Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, read the story of his crucifixion from a storybook Bible, and talked about why Jesus did this. We took Finn to church to see a life-size wooden cross and showed him some nails and talked about what Jesus went through for us to take the punishment for our sins.
Advent Day 12 - We talked about animal sacrifice in the Old Testament, and how Jesus was our lamb, sacrificed for our sins. We told Finn that in the same way that Jesus took the punishment for our sins, Daddy was going to take Finn’s spanking for him today, as an act of substitutionary atonement. Finn was pretty amused by this, and actually got excited that afternoon when Dad had to take a spanking for him. Not exactly the response we were hoping for, but hopefully it helped him to understand a little about what it meant for Jesus to take our punishment for us.
Advent Day 13 - We read about how Jesus is at the right hand of God in heaven now, interceding on our behalf, reminding God that we are forgiven. We also read about John’s vision of heaven in a storybook Bible. Finn liked talking about the pictures.
Advent Day 14 - We talked about the covenant of works and the covenant of grace with Finn. Admittedly this was a bit heavy for him, but at the end of the devotional he was able to tell us that we go to heaven because of Jesus’ obedience, not our own. We started trying to memorize 1John 1:9 together a family too. Finn was unfamiliar with the word, “confess” so we talked about that and what a true confession involves (naming your sin). I’m hoping that he made the connection with how we require that of him when he’s apologizing for something.
Advent Day 15 - We talked about the gift of eternal life that Jesus gives His children. I always feel like I’m probably confusing Finn with the idea that we’ll never die even though we will probably die physically one day… he tends to accept what we teach him without asking questions, though. We told Finn that because Jesus gives us wonderful gifts like eternal life, at Christmas we give gifts to other people. This day we took a family trip to the mall to buy Christmas presents for each other. Finn went with Derek to buy a present for me, and then he went with me to buy for Derek. It was fun, though we did have to talk him out of some pretty hilarious ideas of what his dad would want for Christmas. He also saw some things that he wanted to get for himself, and I reminded him that we don’t buy gifts for ourselves, but for others.
Advent Day 16 - Today’s devotional reading talked about how God’s kingdom sometimes seems upside down due to sin and the effects of the fall in our world. The picture was of an upside down castle, and Finn really fixated on why it was upside down (in fact for the next several days he always asked about whether the picture was upside down or not). He seemed to understand, by the end of our discussion, though, that the reason God’s kingdom seems upside down sometimes is because of our sin, but God can make it better. We sang praises to God as a family for making bad things good… though Finn for some reason was read to be done and had a poor attitude through our worship time. Skye loved it, though, and was pretty excited about beating on the cajon with her dad.
Advent Day 17 - The devotional today was about how Jesus makes our hearts clean and blameless. I used play-doh to demonstrate this. I made two “clean” hearts, Finn’s and Jesus’s, but then I talked with Finn about how every time he does a no-no there’s sin in his heart, and I put a spot in his heart with another color of play-doh. But I explained that Jesus never sinned, so His heart was clean. Then we talked about how God cannot be near any sin, so everyone with sin in their heart is condemned to hell when they die. (Finn spent several minutes deciding where on the table should be our designated “heaven” and our designated “hell.” Then I told Finn that when Jesus came, he gave Finn His clean heart so that Finn could go to heaven, and Jesus took Finn’s sinful heart, and had to die as a result. Overall this whole demonstration went pretty well. Later Finn asked for a nail and started pounding holes into Jesus’ heart since Jesus was nailed to the cross. I guess he remembered that from day 11!
Advent Day 18 - On this day we talked about how God sends His children into the world to show people what God is like. We talked about how Finn could show his friends at school what God is like (loving, kind, etc.) I had planned originally for us to draw a picture with Finn to represent what God is like, but I think that was a little abstract to Finn and we never actually got around to it.
Advent Day 19 - We talked about how Satan has the power to accuse us of sin, but Jesus’s sacrifice conquered Satan so that we can be forgiven. We also talked about how because Jesus has forgiven Finn for his sins, Mom and Dad also have to always forgive Finn no matter how bad his sin is. We told Finn that we had a special gift for him to remind him that we will always forgive him for his no-nos. We give Finn a new teddy bear, and told him that the bear would remind him of how much we love him and will always forgive him. He seemed to like it, but was pretty adament that the bear couldn’t talk.
Advent Day 20 - We talked today about Satan and how God empowers us to defeat sin in our lives. We role played defeating sin like a soldier with God’s power.
Advent Day 21 - This day’s lesson was about how one of the reason’s that Jesus came to earth was to help us know God better. We talked some about the great commission, and how we are called to show others who God is. Today Finn recorded a video in which he tells what he knows about God.
Advent Day 22 - We learned about how the Bible is a very special gift that we have from God, that is essentially a letter from Him, in which He tells us about Himself. Because God has written this wonderful letter to us, Finn dictated a letter to me that he chose to send to his grandparents.
Advent Day 23 - On this day we talked about how sin separates us from God, but Jesus bridged the gap between us and God when He died on the cross. We had Finn go to the end of the hallway, away from Derek, to demonstrate the distance between Finn and God, and then I took Derek’s hand and Finn’s hand and pulled them together to demonstrate how Jesus brings us close to God when he takes away our sin.
Advent Day 24 - Today we talked about how Jesus forgives us of our sin, but he still desires for us to fight against sin in our lives, and to use the power of the Holy Spirit to make wise decisions and say no to temptation. We told Finn that living life as a child of God can be kind of like a race, where you have to work hard to fight for what’s right. Finn and I prepared for a race in the park outside. We brought two cones to mark the start line and the finish line. Finn was optimistic that he could beat me. Derek yelled, “go!” and we were off. I won. But then we could have a rematch, and this time if he asked Daddy for help, Daddy would help him run the race, just like the Holy Spirit helps us to fight sin in our lives. Finn agreed to this plan and asked Derek to help. This time as soon as the race began, Derek grabbed Finn and took off, beating me easily. Finn was pretty pumped about winning.
Advent Day 25 - Christmas day we had the Bible wrapped in wrapping paper under the tree and we had Finn open that present first. We talked again about how the Bible was one of the wonderful gifts that God gives us, and how in it we can read about Jesus’ birth. We read the Christmas story out of the Bible and thanked God for coming to earth for us. Then we presented gifts to each other. Finn was excited to run and get the gifts for us that he had helped choose and wrap. Then he was also excited when he realized that we had gifts for him too.
Doing all of these things with Finn this month have been really special. He's gotten excited about doing our advent devotional every morning, and He's really enjoyed some of the activities. I think he also has a deeper understanding of the gospel now. It's hard to say how much of it has really resonated in his heart, but I know that he gets it more now than before this month. It's taken some serious time and intentionality to do it all and I know I won't be able to do this much every advent season, but I'm really glad we've done it this year and that we have some fun mementos from it too!
- Laura
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