Grace for the Moment: Kids Edition

Grace for the Moment is a great devotional book for kids 6-10 years old. The daily devotionals are broken up to include a bible verse to reflect on, a few short paragraphs about what the verse means and relates it easily for a kid to understand, and finishes with a "Growing in Grace" paragraph that guides a kid to use the verse with an application to their life. This is definitely not a quick devotional you can mark off a checklist for kids - this is a more in depth look at verses for kids and geared towards kids who are getting more mentally mature. If your kid can't quite sit still through a chapter in a short chapter book, you may want to hold off introducing this until they're a little older. The book breaks down bible verses into digestible pieces for kids to take in. I really enjoyed the application portions of each devotional. Instead of simply telling kids to just "think about this or that" or "draw this picture and play a game with mom and dad", this book encourages kids to pray to God for themselves and others, challenges them to look up more than just the single verse noted in the devotional, and even encourages them to journal their thoughts for the week. As an example, for the devotional regarding Psalm 34:17 ("The Lord hears good people when they cry out to him. He saves them from all their troubles."), the "Growing in Grace" challenge is to keep a journal for a week and write down all the ways Jesus says "I love you" (From the sunrise painted for you, to the air you breathe, to the stars in the sky," and so forth). Another devotional (Matthew 22:37 - "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind") challenged my kids to not only think about themselves (how do you want people to describe you), then what they thought about Jesus (think of words that you think describe Jesus). From there, it then challenged my kids to try to live so that people will say the same words them as they said about Jesus. There are 365 days of teachable moments in this book For kids who are already starting to read the bible themselves, the book ends with two reading plans - one is a 30 day plan about Jesus, the second is a 90 day plan into the bible. Overall, our family found this book to be incredibly helpful and uplifting, and is a good companion for kids who are beginning to deepen their faith.

This is a fantastic devotion book for the family. It now sits on our dining room table and the kids ask to read it at almost every meal. Each page is a devotion for a calendar day in the year. They are short and concise, which is great for kids (and others...lets me honest here). The last paragraph also has a practical application for each day, which is sometimes a bit intensive for our young family but good nonetheless. Our oldest child is only 3 years old, and these devotions are meant for older kids, but it is not hard to adjust the wording or make it a bit more relevant to a 3 year old's life. We'll throw in examples from the day or her bother's name when it talks about being called to forgive (shameless parenting plug). The topics of each devotion are not just the simple dealings, but get into real life, and sometimes difficult, questions for kids to wrestle with. I would guess that we will be using this devotion book for years and years to come. I highly recommend it for families, especially to develop good meal conversation.

Beautiful, well-made, inspirational, book for child or adult. I bought this for my 11 y/o neighbor boy who is getting to know Christ. I love Max Lucado to start with, hence why I chose this. What a wonderful devotional! The pages are all beautifully illustrated, glossy and sturdy! The whole book is sturdy! This could stand up to years of devotion and being tossed in a back pack. The images are bright, colorful and coordinate with the message on the page. My neighbor boy loves it. I gave him a coloring journal to go along with it and he is excited as... well a little boy at Christmas to get started on it.

This is the best devotional for an elementary student age. My third grader reads it to me each night, then we look up the Bible passage referenced, and we discuss it further. I should mention he goes to a private Christian School so he is very familiar with the bible language and terms. Sometimes it is frustrating when the version of the bible the devotional uses is not the same as what we use, but once we look it up, then we can understand the difference in language is not changing the meaning, so it is a teaching moment. I recommend this devotional for the right age group. If you have to read it to your child, then it probably be too wordy and complex for their understanding. Teenagers would find it not challenging enough.

Great book for short, to-the-point devotions for the whole family. Our kids, ages 8 and 11, are able to grasp the concepts quickly and easily. I love the included ribbon bookmark to help keep track of where you are each day! Each page offers a Bible passage, a paragraph or two explaining the scripture in real-world examples and words, then a few discussion questions. I do wish the devotions were just a little bit more in-depth, since sometimes it feels like the devotion is over before the kids have even had a chance to grasp what it's about. But the discussions are thoughtful and appropriate for kids, and it has inspired some GREAT discussions over the dinner table! Serves as a perfect jumping-off point for daily conversations about Biblical principles. Would recommend this as a great daily devotional book for a busy family.

Very good devotional with only a few minor things. 1) I feel like most devotionals I checked out were incredibly dated. This one stood out as one of the few that were relevant and not written geared towards "Sally cheated on a test and felt guilty, what should she do" type "reality" questions/challenges. I remember my mom reading me things like that when I was young and thinking how stupid they were. I didn't want to give my kids any excuse to think that our morning devotional time was stupid. 2) I like the format of dated days rather than just a mess of devotions put together- but I feel like weekends are missed since we as a family rarely eat breakfast together (that is when we do our devotions). Not a huge deal since next year and the year after we will catch the ones that we missed, but rather than date them, having them as 365 days of devotion would be nice, but really just specifically for me. My boys are ages 5 and 7 and I feel like only a few of the devotions are over their heads (more for the 5 year old, probably- but he is more quiet and less likely to participate anyways!), but most of them are spot on- especially for the 7 year old. Some of the topics are deep and ask deep questions, others are more "fluffy" but still get them God-focused before school which is my master plan. I would recommend this devotional over all of the ones I have reviewed/purchased so far.

I could not ask for a better devotional book! This book is great for the whole family. The kids easily understand the lessons and us parents have felt the teachings as well. I am not sure how the next book we order will ever compare to this. The lessons are perfect for kids and incredibly easy to understand. My kids ages 7 and 8 are able to tell me a summary of what they learned from our readings. Highly recommended for anyone with young kids!

We have been using this for a few months and really enjoy it. It is easy to just pull off from the shelf and read. My 7 year old gets excited and will do it by himself sometimes. Great for beginners. I struggled with getting my son used to reading the Bible everyday and trying to teach him something about it. This has helped immensely. Some days there are activities so not always great right before bed but most days there are not. Still gives us a lot to talk about every night. We end up doing some of the activities later on anyway so great for ideas. Loved this book overall and the shipping was super quick. Oddly though there was not a leap day entry, but I guess that would only be a problem every 7 years :). Beautiful book and it has a bookmark to help save the day.