Kids and Questions.

    You know, I don't give my kids enough credit for how much they remember and understand. Today at church, which is the first time attending Sunday service at this new church, my oldest son (5yrs) had to sit with us through the main service. He attended Sunday school from 0900-1015ish and then the church policy is that all kindergarteners and up have to sit through the service. Which I think is great; it teaches them patience and reverence which is kind lost on some younger kids these days I feel with TV shows being on demand and YouTube being on every device. Anyways, he asked me what the communion packet was for, you know, the plastic cup of juice sealed with a little wafer sealed on top of that? Naturally I didn't have time to explain it to him and I certainly wasn't going to shortchange him an answer.

    I guess his question really got me to thinking about how it is my (and my wife's) responsibility to ensure he, and his two younger brothers, grows up learning the gospel story so he can one day make his own profession of faith. I emphasize that because my wife, when my son asked what it was, kind of looked at me and I think may have said something about getting a communion packet for my son, but I know that it wouldn't be right for my son to partake until he understood and accepted all that it meant. This evening, before bed while my wife was putting the 2yr old down, I took my two older boys to the living room and explained a very abbreviated gospel story to them. To which they already knew kind of because my 5-year old finished one of my sentences and then the younger one said "and then we will all go to heaven!", to which I was kind of awestruck for a second. The are only four and five but already kind of have a grasp of that stuff. I read them a part of a kids version of the bible for the better part of one to two years and it kind of seemed as if they didn't pay that much attention. In children's church at our last church I would often press them on the ride home about what they had learned that day and the usual response was either very generic or the whole "I don't know" thing. My assumptions about these answers and their seeming lack of attentiveness during bible story time were very wrong; I was very happy about this.

    It makes me very happy and I feel very satisfied knowing that they are really starting to grow up and know the gospel story in very broad strokes. I feel as if that's how it should be: a child grows up learning the general overview of the bible stories and the gospel and as you age you start to fill in the details. Day by day, one lesson, sermon, devotional or revelation at a time you fill in every last tiny shade of the whole until you die. Hopefully by then the canvas of your testimony and understanding of salvation is clear and accurate; something to be yearned for within the lifetime of all people. I must remind myself constantly that this is my calling and that the mastery of worldly craft and techniques are fleeting but that real devotion is found within they study of God's word and God's Grace. 

    Sometimes my kids act like turds but I love them to death and I am grateful and humbled that they can bring such thoughtfulness and revelation to me about things of God.