Long Story Short: Ten-Minute Devotions to Draw Your Family to God

We just finished this as a family, going through this slowly over the past three plus years. It’s meant to be done in a year and a half. Our slow pace has nothing to do with the content and everything to do with the real struggle of maintaining consistent devotions with four kids under 10. What Machowski has provided for families here is phenomenal. My kids have been shown so many gospel connections to Jesus through the Old Testament. Sometimes it’s a little repetitive and some of the Scripture readings are a bit long for a ten minute devotional (emphasis on “some”…typically he gives several verses or a short narrative passage rather than full chapters). But all in all, this is an excellent resource for families, especially for those with kids under 10.

Our family really enjoyed this devotional. I appreciate how each day we work through a passage of Scripture. It does a good job highlighting Jesus in the Old Testament each week. We had many good discussions as we went through this as a family.

First of all, I am a retired children's minister having served God and children for 31 years. I have also written children's Bible curriculum for 15 years. I think I know what I am talking about.

Our church, Bridgepoint Bible Church, recently started your 3 year curriculum. When I found out that you also publish The Gospel Story Bible and a family Long Story Shorty devotional book that accompany the curriculum, I was blown away. This is BIG. Now it is easy for the children's teachers at church and the parents to join together and work each week to guide the spiritual development of children. The children will truly be blessed because of what you have done in preparing a Bible study curriculum, a children's Bible, and a weekly family devotional book. Thank you.

Fantastic family devotion for tweens.

We loved the hands-on object lessons, the right-sized devotional passages, and the Jesus-centered questions. This devotional ensures that you really cover the Old Testament. (It’s a 78 week devotional that took us about 2 years to finish in reality!)bBut I loved that it didn’t just stick to the classic stories but got us reading in the prophets almost every week, seeing Jesus in every passage, and really spending time in lesser known passages. It’s pretty comprehensive overview of the OT that my kids (ages 4-10 when we started) could all understand.

Our family worship time was completely transformed by this book. Perfect for families with kids of all ages. It is a great tool for taking your family through the Old Testament. Includes discussion questions and a prayer guide for each lesson. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Whew. We finally finished this. I think we started four years ago-ish? It's hard to remember. It's supposed to take 1.5 years at 5 days per week, which would be perfect for most families. We have ministry interruptions, so don't quite get 5 days per week, but you could combine two days into one if the Bible readings weren't too long. Some are quite long with a whole chapter, some, only a handful of verses. We also took breaks from this to do other devotional books and ideas. So it certainly doesn't have to take as long as we did.

This is an excellent family devotional. I love the basic organization of it, especially to help families get started with young-ish kids (not too young) with actually reading the Bible, talking about it, and praying through it. Our children are now old enough to read the Bible passage aloud with us.

Positives: a fair representation of the OT, decent survey of the main stories. I liked how he tried to point forward to Jesus. (Some of these seemed contrived or repetitive at times in order to fit the book organization. Some could have been done better. But still, great idea, and overall, well-done.) I love that this is not a Bible retelling; you are actually reading the Bible and then a little devo on it with review questions. Charlotte Mason says children should read/hear the actual Bible, not retellings, so this checks that box. (I do like some good retellings for the younger set. I love Catherine Vos's retelling.) No theological concerns, seemed very sound biblically.

Negatives: We got tired of the hands-on demonstration at the beginning of the week, especially since day 1's opener was also a picture or story. It sometimes turned out to be two illustrations or object lessons in a row, and that was too much or weird or sometimes disconnected. I think he could have cut one or the other. We also felt that the prayer suggestion could have been much richer spiritually. Often it was a bit lame, like thanking God that He worked sovereignly in this or that OT situation. We preferred prayer suggestions that asked for help in a certain sin area or were praising God for some theological truth that the story taught. But parents can just do this themselves. As a model, it's still valid and helpful. Some of the questions also might be not what we would have chosen, but that's not a big deal.

Overall, very well done, and I'm so happy I got it free on Kindle years ago. What a blessing. I wanted to go right on to the NT book, but it is a little intimidating, since this one took soooo long. So we are going to do Catherine Vos's Bible first, just to do a full Bible review. Then maybe we'll go to Machowski's NT book or to one of the books published by Apologia (Who Is God? etc.). :) Praise to the author for a job well done.

Starts strong but looses some steam towards the middle. Makes it through rebuilding Jerusalem temple and wall. Good overall but kinda long. Some sections get tedious. Most conclusions are solid.

This family devotional has taken us a looooong time to get through, because it is a very thorough, deep dive into the Old Testament. It provides 78 weeks worth of material, broken into 5 days of study each week, with each day taking 5-10 minutes. I loved how it is gospel-centered, always pointing ahead to Jesus. I didn’t feel like it was always particularly engaging to my kids, but now that we’ve finished it, they have asked to start the follow up New Testament book, so I guess they liked it well enough!?

Highly, highly recommend. We started this devotional at breakfast times when my kids were about 4 and 7. It's taken us a little less than three years to get through it. We have had hundreds of conversations because of it. My kids have been introduced to the overarching story of the Bible because of this book. They've been introduced to all the main characters and stories of the Bible as well as all the major biblical doctrines, not in a dumbed down cartoony way stripped of context and power, but in a real life conversational way that trusts the Holy Spirit speaks to little ones through the actual words of Scripture. Each week also includes passages from prophecy and/or the New Testament that relates the Old Testament stories to Jesus.The activities, supplemental stories, and questions work to bring light to each day's passage. Scripture is the star of the show. The book supports parents in sharing the actual word of God. It's been a huge blessing to us.

It took us a year and a half but we finished this 77 week devotional of the Old Testament and loved the journey! Highly recommend this devotional. It is solid. Love that it provides me a framework for reading the actual Bible with my children. Its commentary is never overwhelming and it points back to Jesus every single week. It does a great job showing how the OT fits together with the NT and God’s big story of redemption. We will be starting the New Testament one next school year!

Everyone with kids needs this devotional! I even learned some things along the way. This book is so great to introduce the Old Testament in depth, make sure your kids understand what was read, how it points forward to Jesus, and teaches them how to pray.

Wonderful to go through with the kids!

Pretty decent devotionals for younger kids. Would stick to elementary school ages.

Excellent resource! It's taken us about 5 years to work through this during our morning time for homeschool. My kids and I have learned a great deal from this old testament survey. Pairs well with the Gospel Story Bible by the same author (we still read the scripture readings from the actual Bible, but use the GSB is a great intro to each story).

Okay.... I haven’t really ‘finished’ the whole thing but we have used sections of the book for family devotions off and on for several years. This summer we started in Joshua and jumped off into rabbit trails through 2 Samuel. One of the things that I love about this devotional is the way it understands the underlying story theme of the Bible and how the Old Testament is fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus. The method has become a habit as our family works our way through Old Testament stories and we ask, “where is Jesus?” The other thing I love about the devo is that you are reading straight from the Bible in manageable portions, with a short accompanying explanation.

This is family devotional, split into units that take you through the Old Testament. Not just the usual passages, but deep texts. It’s good, but it took us a long time. We read it in three different houses; it took us eight years. So for us it was more like “long story long.”

I have used this book with my own children as well as recommending it to parents as our Children's Ministry Director. I really appreciate the church-home connection that this book offers. However, I would love if this could be condensed into a one-page take-home option as well. We have liked the Gospel Story Curriculum, but I wish there was something simple created to better fill the gap between home and church.

This is a wonderful devotional for families! I love how each weeks theme points to Jesus. The devotions are short but meaty. Our kids are 8,6,4 and this is perfect for our age range!

it took us five years and three houses to finish but it was well worth it and I use it everyday and second grade for my classroom devotions.

Helpful devotional book that takes you through most of the narrative of the OT. It's set up to take 78 weeks if, if you practice family worship 5 times a week. Ours is tied to being around the dinner table together, so 3-4 times a week is more common. Thus it took 2 years to work through. The summaries of the passage being read are helpful, especially for younger kids. The discussion questions are generally good, and useful for people like myself who sometimes struggle to relate things to kids under 5. I think the real gold of this book is the simple framework it gives for a devotional time. If you are intimidated by trying to lead your family in devotions, this book can give you the "training wheels" (I mean nothing derogatory by that) which could help you get moving down the road. Do what they have laid out, sing a Hymn, and you're in fantastic shape. I passed my copy along to my little brother to use with his family.

We'd been looking for a devotional to use as a family and this one worked really well! The lesson and questions were well written and allowed us to discuss and pray, even with our young kids. I think it will work well when they are older as well.

Really liked how the chapters are short enough to keep attention of the young ones but detailed enough to be a challenging reflection on Gods Word

This devotional is written to present a biblical gospel from cover to cover. It is intended to aid you in passing this treasure on to your children . . . passing on the truth of God's Word is our unique responsibility as parents._ (Page 1)_The goal of this devotional is to . . . pass on a clear gospel message showing our children how every story in the Bible points forward or back to the gospel of Jesus Christ and God's story of salvation. (Page 2) The target audience is parents of younger aged children (i.e., parents who have children ranging from toddler age to young teenager years). The content is directed toward the children. Marty Machowski does a broad overview the entire Old Testament in his work. He also ties in the central theme throughout the entire Bible that it speaks of GodÕs redemptive plan and points to Jesus as the ScripturesÕ fulfillment (John 5:39). Long Story Short is biblically well

"After many attempts at finding a devotional that our entire family (2 kids one a teenager and one almost a teenager) can get into, we have found the one.
Most were too cutesy and wouldn't keep the interest of our teenage son. This one however, provokes thought and when you ask the questions in front of you, you can have a cute answer for the younger crowd, but also draw out a more serious answer from the older kids. This is a fantastic devotional and I won't hesitate to buy the other editions (there is reference to a 2nd one covering the NT)."

We bought this book at the recommendation of our pastor. It's a short devotional that really only takes a few minutes every night. I really love it because it's fast and easy to use. It's also good for all ages. You kind of can adjust it to fit young and older children.

Great for family devotionals! Love how easy it is to follow along and my kids enjoy it also. Get this, you won't regret it.