Week 545 · about 45 minutes
Psalms 31
Psalms 31 · Memory verse Psalms 31:16
Get the free weekly Sunday school and bedtime printable pack
For a parent or teacher. Children do not make accounts here. The pack is a week of printables, not a child profile.
Queues the lesson plan, this story’s coloring page (Psalms 31), the matching word search and answer key (Psalms 31 word search), the memory-verse tracer, and a parent slip.
Five-minute object lesson
Prop: a piece of bread
Hold a piece of bread. Read Psalms 31 in about four minutes, stopping at Psalms 31:16: “Make your face to shine on your servant. Save me in your loving kindness.” Ask, “What does this prop have to do with Psalms 31?” Let two children answer, then say the memory verse together.
Story script
Psalms 31 is a real chapter from the Old Testament. It starts, “In you, Yahweh, I take refuge. Let me never be disappointed. Deliver me in your righteousness.” That is not a motto invented for a poster. It is the first sentence a family hears when this page is opened at night.
Keep going a little further. The chapter also says, “For I have heard the slander of many, terror on every side, while they conspire together against me, they plot to take away my life.” Psalms 31 opens with these words: “In you, Yahweh, I take refuge. Let me never be disappointed. Deliver me in your righteousness.” The line to keep is Psalms 31:16: “Make your face to shine on your servant. Save me in your loving kindness.” Carry the word “face” from that verse into the rest of the day.
The line worth learning out loud is Psalms 31:16: “Make your face to shine on your servant. Save me in your loving kindness.” If the rest of the chapter feels crowded, hold that one sentence until the room is quiet.
What happens first in Psalms 31? Then try this: Read “Make your face to shine on your servant. Save me in your loving kindness.” once more. What does it show you about God? You do not have to finish every verse. You can close the book after the memory verse and still have read the Bible together.
Group game
Walk the room as if you are moving through Psalms 31. Every time you freeze, a child says one word from Psalms 31:16. The last child says the whole verse.
Craft
On a US Letter sheet, draw one picture from Psalms 31 and write Psalms 31:16 under it. Send it home as tonight’s reminder, not as a decoration contest.
Memory verse
Psalms 31:16
“Make your face to shine on your servant. Save me in your loving kindness.”
Take-home prayer
Father, thank you for Psalms 31. Help us remember Psalms 31:16 when we wake up, and teach us to notice you in an ordinary night. Amen.