“What Really Happened at the Hagan House!” (God card #38 – Telephone)

So, you have purchased the God cards and looked over the handy poster that comes with them. You read the introduction, agreed with the importance of this endeavor and attempted to understand the “Getting Started” section, but you still aren’t quite sure how this works. So, I want to give you a picture of how it fleshed out in the Hagan house – step by step using the “Getting Started” section from the God cards poster to guide us along the way. It is one thing to tell you how to do it, but another thing to show you the Hagan people really doing it! And you will see we often take detours depending on the moment and what is interesting to Maya, Ada and Carson. And our family times never quite go as planned either. My family like yours is full of crazy – just take a peek!

God card #38 Telephone – I believe God answers me when I talk to him.

1. Read through all the cards. We had just started doing these, so I just picked one.
2. Pray. “Father, I praise you for making yourself known through your Word. I believe you, and I trust you. You are a Father of love, and you desire a story with me. You desire my seeking, and you are always attentive to my focus. Thanks for the invite. I want my children to know you too. I want them to be changed by your love. I want it to permeate their heart and then matter in their choices. I believe that a life with you is the best way to live and a pursuit of who you are is a great first step. So, reveal yourself to the Hagan family through these stories and verses. We want to know you.”
3. Choose a card. I chose Telephone – “I believe Father God answers me.” I also wrote on a piece of paper before the kids came in: “I believe Father God.” I gave each of them a verse and put it in their Bibles at the place. When they came in the kitchen, the paper and their Bibles were all on the table.
4. Read the “I believe” statement and talk about what it means. So, we read the statement, and I asked: “What does it mean to answer someone? How does it feel when you don’t get answered?”
5. Explore the verses – read. We then read the verses and talked about why each one was a story about him answering. We then played the phone game, because right now answering the phone when it rings is a big deal. Injuries happen in our house as they all race to get the phone first. Have one of your children pretend to dial a phone and you pretend to be God. Do some funny ways God might answer the phone to get across the concept that he always answers us, knows our name and cares about what we have to say. You can end with the right response. Feel free to make up your own responses. And as well, switch roles and let them play Father God. Just have fun. So, your child might go – “Ding-aling-aling. Hey God, I need you. I have a question.” And your response could be some of the following:
a. “Uh, who is this? Sorry, don’t know you.” Hang up the phone.
b. “This is Sam. Oh, Sam, I can’t talk to you. You have been making way too many bad choices. You have got to shape up before we speak.”
c. “Yawn. Oh, I am really tired today. I just can’t focus on what you need. Call back tomorrow.”
d. “Sam, I don’t have time today. There is an earthquake in California, some disease in India, and a big fight in Africa. I just don’t have time for you today. Too many more important things to do.”
e. “Sam, is that you? Oh, I am so glad you called. I have really wanted to talk with you. How are you?”
6. Explore the verses – draw it, paint it, act it out or write about it. After playing the telephone game, they drew some pictures of their verses.
7. Post the pictures and pray. We put all of this up on the family board and prayed.
8. Talk about your pictures and words throughout the week. One of our favorite CD collections is the Seeds of Change. They are always in our car. So, during the week, we listened to one of our verses on the CD – “Call To Me,” track 1 on Seeds of Praise. We looked back at our pictures at meal times, talked about the funny phone game, made up new answers and laughed again. We thanked Father all week for answering us when we call.