Forgiveness

Heavy luggage

Drama / Role play

Pack a load of heavy luggage and carry it for a while.

Discussion point: Sin and guilt are heavy burdens, but forgiveness brings joyful relief.

Tell your children that you are going on a journey. Load a tool belt full of tools, pack a backpack with cans of food and bottles of water and fill a suitcase with heavy clothing. Have your children dress in heavy clothing as well. Then take turns carrying all of these heavy items around until your children understand what the phrases “a burden too heavy to bear” and “my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer,” mean (Psalm 32:4).

Questions for discussion
  • How does it feel to wear all these extra clothes and to carry all this extra baggage?
  • How can sin make us feel heavy?
  • What can you do to remove extra weight?
  • What can you do to remove the heaviness of sin?
  • How do we feel after God has forgiven our sins?

Read Psalm 32:1-5 and explain that King David felt weighed down by his sin until he confessed his sins. Just as taking off the heavy clothing and setting down the luggage is a big relief, so we are refreshed and filled with joy when God forgives our sins. At the end of Psalm 32 David says, “Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart” (Psalm 32:11). When we confess our sins and choose to do right instead of wrong, we feel much happier than when we hold on to sin.

Other ideas

If you have read Pilgrim’s Progress, re-enact Christian’s journey, ending with his arrival at the cross where his burden (of sin) falls from his back.

Relevant Scripture

Psalm 38:4 “My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.”