Weights of Worries, Unforgiveness, and Sin

Hefty title, heh? Pun intended!  My husband, Sunday School teacher extraordinaire, came up with a brilliant idea to help our girls understand how worry, unforgiveness and sin can effect our lives and those around us. {We have Sunday School at home with our kiddos here in Portugal.}

First, he had the girls “practice” obeying God by walking to the table and back as if God had given them that instruction. He held their hand as if God was going with them {and He does!}.

He first put a belt around their waist, and bungee-corded “a worry” they might have, then another onto the belt. Then he asked them to do the same obedience exercise, walking to the table with God. This time is was more difficult for the girls to keep up the pace with him and not get hurt! Hmm…how does worry affect our walk with God?

He used the same weight example with sin that we don’t confess to God and receive forgiveness for.  As with worry {it is really a sin in itself: Matthew 6:25-34; Philippians 4:6}, unconfessed sin interferes with our relationship with God, our ability to receive His love and walk in all the good stuff He has for us!

We also talked about unforgiveness—how it is a weight on us to not let the other person off the hook, whether they ask forgiveness or not!

Lastly, we talked about how we can give these weights to other people if we’re not careful—interfering with others’ ability to receive God’s love, and to obey and worship Him. Nothing like a little weight to make a worship time difficult!

My heart in sharing this is more than documenting our own family’s journey with God. We hope YOU can know:

• the LOVE of the Father in such a way that His TRUTH replaces worries
• His plan of forgiveness through His Son, Jesus, for EVERY sin
• how we can FORGIVE OTHERS because we are forgiven
• how we love others by not defiling them with information about others, stirring up fear, and things like this

If you have any questions, I’d love to field them as I can. We’ll be working on not carrying these weights at our house!