Welcome Spring with this collection of family devotions ideas. You’ll be searching for treasures, playing in the mud, creating artwork, spring cleaning, and planting new life. Grab your rain boots and allow the Word of God to speak anew. Enjoy!
1. New Life Treasure Hunt
Grab a camera and entrust it to your child if you’re brave. Take binoculars and/or a magnifying glass and hunt for signs of new life. Photograph your findings. Look for perennials poking up through the ground, buds on the trees, and insects crawling in the dirt. Look and listen for birds, streams of rushing water, and tadpoles turning into frogs. Go to a farm to snap pictures of baby animals. Visit a newborn infant and witness the joy of a mom and dad welcoming new life into the world. Develop the pictures for a photo album, scrapbook, or spring photo display.
Discuss 2 Corinthians 5:17-18, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” Unpack what our hearts and lives look like without Christ – dead and without hope in the world. Talk about how Christ died so that we might live. When we invite Him to be a part of our lives, He gives us new life in Him. Tell your story of redemption to your children. Discuss how Christ made your life new. Challenge yourself and them to live as new creations, living for God and others.
Brainstorm a New Life Treasure Hunt of your own, that includes characteristics of a new life in Christ. For example, “We will use our words to encourage. We will help one another. We will forgive, as Jesus forgave.” As a family, post one characteristic a week and work towards demonstrating that goal and finding it in others. Celebrate each treasure that you find in one another!
2. Muddy Hands, Muddy Feet
What child does not love to sing, dance, run, laugh, and play in the rain? Wear your grungiest clothes, grab umbrellas (though it’s more fun if you don’t!), and put on boots and rain coats. ( If you struggle to find good value in childrens boots, just give up the retail stores and shop online on the Shoes Fella site.
Head outside to stomp in puddles, slide in the mud, and sing your loudest praise. If it’s warm enough, let your children take off their boots and allow the mud to squish between their toes. Have them play in the mud like its play dough. Just make sure you have a hose nearby or a warm shower on standby!
Compare sin to the mud that covers you. Consider covering yourself with mud as you say, “Mud is like anger. Mud is like lying. Mud is like jealousy. This mud makes us unclean on the outside. Sin makes us unclean on the inside. It separates us from a holy God. The blood of Jesus is like water, washing our sin away.” Use Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, Romans 5:8, and Romans 10:9-10 as possible references. Talk about how God desires for us to be cleansed of our sin, just like the water (from the rain or shower) cleanses us from the mud. We are meant to live holy lives, clean and spotless before God. Only Jesus can wash that sin away.
3. His Art, Our Masterpiece:
The beauty of God’s creation is evident all year round if we are looking for it, but it is so evident in the spring! Grab bags or a box to collect God’s treasures in. Observe the beauty and intricate design in every item.
Collect flowers, leaves, seeds, rocks, twigs, grass, shells, sand, and whatever else you can find! Make a mosaic out of seeds or a wreath for your front door out of flowers, vines, or branches. Paint rock animals to use as toys or paperweights. Paint multiple rocks in bright varying colors to use as decorative elements in pots or vases.
Bring a small branch inside and “plant” it in a pot. Decorate it by hanging seasonal elements with ribbon. Hang paper or foam hearts, shamrocks, flowers, eggs, leaves, fruit, Bible verses, anything. Use your tree for decoration, encouragement, motivation, fun, and teaching.
Decorate a picture frame or the edges of a mirror with shells. Use glue, card stock, and sand to write your children’s name or initials. Press flowers for bookmarks or wall art. Add coinciding scripture verses to any of the art pieces.
Whatever you do, talk about God’s wisdom, beauty, and imagination as you create together. Read Psalm 148, which talks about creation praising the Lord. Invite everyone to share their favorite part of creation (aardvarks, the ocean, sun flowers, whatever). Remind your children that they are God’s signature creation. Read Psalm 139:13-14. Take turns praising God for each other specifically, modeling it first. You may want to write that verse on their mirrors so they see it daily.
4. Spring Clean
Hoping to get the house clean for spring or summer? Don’t do it alone! Even the youngest of children can help. Just make sure you make it fun! (We all know it’s all about the presentation and marketing!) Have everyone wear work clothes, turn on some loud praise music, sing, play, and scrub away!
For older children, have them use all natural cleaning products, void of any chemicals. Let them use the kid-safe vacuum cleaners that you can read about on these vacuum reviews that I will link below. For younger children, a squirt bottle of water and a rag or a mitten or glove is all you will need. Our three year old boy LOVES to help clean. A squirt bottle on the walls and a rag can engage that child for hours!
After the work is done, treat your children to their favorite food. Over lunch or dinner, thank them for their hard work and draw a connection between house cleaning and heart cleaning. Talk about the importance of keeping a clean heart before God.
Discuss Psalm 51:2 which says, “Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.” Also, Psalm 51:10 says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Talk about asking forgiveness for our sins on a daily basis and keeping a right heart before God. Highlight Psalm 51:12, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.” Our lives, as Christ followers, should be marked my joy! Model to your children how to ask for forgiveness and allow them to do the same.
5. Plant New Life
Get your gardening gear out and allow your child to partner in planting new life. Show them how to prepare the soil, where to plant the seeds, and how to nurture and protect the plant daily. If you yourself do not have a green thumb, invite someone over who does have that expertise.
In addition to planting actual seeds, have your children partner with you in sowing spiritual seeds. This might look markedly different in each family, depending on your own ministry, resources, and gifts. It may include making food together for a new mom, a widow, or someone struggling with an illness. It may look like writing letters of encouragement and coloring pictures. It could be helping out at a food pantry, homeless shelter, or crisis pregnancy center. (Our three and five year old once assembled baby bottles for a fundraising campaign. They didn’t need to know the details, but they were excited to love babies and their mommies because Jesus first loved us.) You might consider sponsoring a child from Compassion International or having them join you on a mission trip.
Whatever you do, ensure that they partner with you in that ministry. Prepare them ahead of time for what they will do or what they may see. Give them specific age-appropriate jobs and work together towards the goal. When you are finished, unpack the experience and how they helped. Ask them questions. Allow them the freedom to ask you questions also. Talk about how God loves us and how we can love Him by living lives of service and devotion.