Purpose: To stress our need to thank God for all the good things that have come to us in life.

Materials: A large stone that you can hold in the palm of your hand and a piece of rope, about two feet long.

Lesson: It is very important to understand what a symbol stands for. Here is a stone and a piece of rope that are symbols of thanksgiving. But to understand their symbolism, we need to know about a practice from Old Testament times. Long ago in Palestine, farmland was given to village families each year by lot. Let me tell you what that meant. At the beginning of the planting season, small stones were marked wi…