Family Faith and Fun Fridays:God’s Egg-Stravagant Love

For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint  marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.
 -Hebrews 4:1

Welcome to family faith and fun Fridays! As the week winds down and I anticipate more family time over the weekend, I often ask God for one good idea that will enable me to bring the Word to life and bring our family together. Usually, the activity overflows out of something the Lord has been teaching me through His Word during the week. I’d like to invite you to join me and my family in the adventure. Sometimes I’ll post things we’ve tried; other times I’ll post an idea in the works. If you’ve got thoughts to add or suggestions on how to adapt or improve the activity, please don’t hesitate to comment.   Enjoy!

adjective

• exceeding what is reasonable or appropriate; absurd: extravagant claims for its effectiveness.
• excessively elaborate in style, speech, or action : large, beautiful, extravagant paintings.

The more I mused upon this word in relation to God’s love, the more awed I felt. I wanted to share the concept of God’s extravagant love with my kids, but I didn’t know where to begin. In the end, I just decided to use a silly theme in order to spark their interest in the mind-boggling reality of God’s absurd, excessive, and elaborate love.

 

Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with Him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that. (Ephesians 5:2)

I hung up a poster covered with cute little crayon colored eggs that announced, “God’s love is EGGSTRAVAGANT!” We read the verse in Ephesians at breakfast each morning and picked out examples from scripture of God’s extravagant love.

Then, for the rest of the week we did goofy “egg activities” that helped us to explore the idea of extravagance.  While the kids enjoyed everything we did, the highlight of our week was without a doubt our EGG DROP. (Thanks once again to my creative friend Sherri for providing the springboard for this crazy fun).

Here’s how it worked…

 

 

I gave the kids each an egg and a gallon-sized Ziplock

bag with this simple mission: Pack your egg so that it doesn’t break even when we throw it onto the cement. The kids could use anything they wanted to protect the egg, but the bag had to be sealed in order to be eligible for the drop.

While the kids packed their eggs, I drew a huge target out of sidewalk chalk on our cement patio. Like a dart board, every rung of the target was worth a varying amount of points, with the bulls eye boasted the greatest value. Each participant was given five tosses to acquire points. They could not open the bag until their throws were complete.

Then the fun began…


The kids positioned themselves near the open window and flung their packages onto the target (or not.. depending on the accuracy of the toss!) We kept a running score for each child and announced the points in progress before. 

Once the tosses were finished, we tallied the points from the target toss. (Much to my little boy’s delight, Josh was in the lead with 75 points, while his big brother lingered at the tail with a mere 30!) But the scores weren’t yet complete. Anyone whose egg had survived the drops without a crack would receive 50 bonus points!

The excitement was palpable as the kids carefully opened their bags and began to unwrap their tossed target strikers.  They pulled out layers of paper towels, winter gloves, washrags, and finally the eggs!

Luke cheered and began adding his fifty points to his total score.

 

Hannah kissed her egg in disbelief.

Josh groaned. “My eggs are scrambled!” 

 

And Lizzy announced herself the egg toss champion.

 

“So what does an egg toss have to do with God’s extravagant love?” I asked when the cheering subsided.