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Have a Ball
Grab
Clothing in your team’s colors
Money
Car keys
Go
Whether it’s a nationally televised pro football game or a basketball game at your local high school, nothing beats the fun of cheering on your favorite team!
Gear up in your team colors. If you’re feeling bold, bring out the face paint and foam fingers! Travel to the stadium, field, or gym of the sporting event. Grab your seats and check out the action around you. How are they prepping the field? Are there players and cheerleaders warming up? Once the game begins, be sure to point out your favorite players and explain the rules and calls by the refs to your daughter—or ask her to explain them to you. And of course, don’t forget the hot dogs!
In every game there’s a winner and a loser. How do you think the winning team is feeling right now? How about the losing team? Do you think that one person on the team gets all the credit for winning the game? Does one person get all the blame for their team’s loss? Sometimes one person has an amazing pass or goal, or one person makes a crazy mistake, but usually it takes great teamwork to win and poor teamwork to lose.
Families are like that too. We have to be a team to have a happy home. If only one person is doing all the chores, they’re going to feel overworked and stressed out. If one person oversleeps, it makes everybody late to church on Sunday morning. Everybody needs to be pitching in and helping each other out for things to go smoothly.
What are some ways our family works together so our home can “win”?
When have things been hard at home because somebody “fouled” and let the others down?
Read these verses together:
How good and pleasant it is
when God’s people live together in unity! (Ps. 133:1)
As holy people whom God has chosen and loved, be sympathetic, kind, humble, gentle, and patient. Put up with each other, and forgive each other if anyone has a complaint. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Above all, be loving. This ties everything together perfectly. (Col. 3:12–14 GW)
What a great blueprint for a family: we put up with each other’s weaknesses, care about each other’s struggles, and forgive. It’s our love for each other that keeps us on the same team!
Please let us be the kind of family that “dwells in unity.” Help us to be a team by helping each other out and cheering each other on. Sometimes we do let each other down. Please enable us to show forgiveness every time. Teach us to care for each other the way you do, with patience and perfect love. Amen!