Tonight after our DVD session, we talked about rules. We asked the kids what rules are, where they have rules to follow, and whether or not they like rules overall. We asked them how having rules makes them "feel" and what they think their lives would be like if they had no rules at all.
We talked about just a few of the rules we're given in God's Word to follow, namely the Ten Commandments. We talked about how six of them pertain to how we relate to other people and four of them pertain to how we relate to God. We asked the kids if they ever wished the Bible didn't have so many commands concerning how we are to live or if they found those rules helpful to them.
Then we read Psalm 119:52, 62 and talked about how David found comfort in God's laws and even thanked God for them. We talked about why David might have felt this way about God's rules.
We talked about how some people felt like they were being robbed of their freedom by so many rules and that real freedom for them was having no restrictions at all and being able to do whatever they wanted to do. Then we asked the kids why having this kind of total freedom could be destructive...to ourselves and others around us. Then the trick question. What about having rules actually makes us more free?
We also talked with the kids about why they obey their parents' rules. Do they obey them so that their parents will love them more and accept them more...or to make their parents proud of them? Or do they obey their parents' rules BECAUSE they love their parents and know how much their parents have done for them? Similarly, do they obey God's rules to earn God's love and make Him accept them and proud of them or do they obey God's rules because they love Him and because of how much God does and has sacrificed for them?
We ended our discussion by playing Mother, May I? and Simon Says...two good follow the rules games!
