Monday, November 8, 2010

Everlasting God

Each day in November, the Everyday Truth blog is looking at a different name for God and providing a family devotional for you to use with your kids. The goal is to keep our hearts focused on giving thanks to God during the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving.


Nothing lasts forever. Toys break. Clothes wear out. Food spoils. Even a terrible day eventually comes to an end. We throw things away every day that have come to the end of their useful lives, whether it be a cereal box or a car we take to the junkyard because it doesn't run anymore. We know it's a fact that things simply don't last forever.

But God is everlasting. He spoke the world into being, and He will still be around even after our world ends. Isaiah 40:28 tell us "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom." God never runs out of time or patience. He never gets tired or doesn't understand something. He is everlasting God. The amount of time we have to live our lives is simply the blink of an eye to God.

Did you know that the longest hitting streak in baseball is 56 games? Joe DiMaggio got at least a base hit in 56 straight games in 1941. It was almost 60 years ago that Joe DiMaggio set that record. No one has ever done it since, and some people think no one will ever break that record.

The fact that Joe DiMaggio's record still stands tells us just how hard it is to consistently hit a baseball in a game. He had to do exactly the right thing at exactly the right time to keep hitting the ball. Because he was human, Joe DiMaggio's streak came to an end at 56 games. Even though 56 games seems like a long time, it's less than half the baseball season.

God is everlasting, but He never changes. If he were a baseball player, he wouldn't just get a base hit in a few consecutive games, He would hit a home run every time He came up to bat all season long. God is the same today as He was on the day He created the heavens and the earth. He will still be the same hundreds of years from now. He is everlasting, and He never changes.

When I was a kid, we used to get hard candy called Everlasting Gobstoppers. Give everyone in the family a gobstopper or a piece of hard candy. While you eat your "everlasting" candy, talk about how it makes you feel to know that God is everlasting. Unlike your candy, He's not going to suddenly disappear tomorrow. And unlike a real gobstopper that changes color and flavor as you eat it, God is not going to change. How does knowing that God is forever and He is unchanging make you grateful to Him?

On your leaves today, write down things you know about God that you are thankful never change. You could be thankful that God will always love you -- forever. You can be thankful that God sent Jesus to save us, and He's not suddenly going to change His mind and decide that there's another way to have a relationship with Him. Any quality that God has that's unchanging, you can write on your leaves. Hang them on your thankfulness tree.
Pray together as a family, thanking God that He is everlasting and unchanging.

Keep a bowl of gobstoppers or hard candy in a prominent place this week to remind your family of God's everlasting nature. Every time someone takes a piece of the candy, have them say Isaiah 40:28 as this week's Memory Monday verse along with one reason they are thankful that God is everlasting.

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