By Rebecca, Outreach Worker in St. James Town
For months, we have been praying for more opportunities to share about God with our kids outside of the structured Bible lessons. And all of a sudden, this prayer is being answered in surprising ways!
Since the New Year, our 5-minute memory verse times have often turned into 25-minute discussions of deep spiritual truths as one kid after another raises their hand with a new question to ask. Who created God? Why are there wars and terrorists in the world? Where did Jesus go for the three days he was in the tomb? What is Gods’ last name? Why were those other books, like the Gospel of Thomas, excluded from the Bible? Who wrote the Bible? If all of us sin, and all who sin go to hell, is that where we are all headed?
I honestly do not understand where all of these great questions are coming from – apart from God. Last year, they barely asked us anything like this. I have also been shocked at how similar their questions are to the questions that students on University campuses asked me when I would talk to them about God. I so often underestimate the minds of children.
What has been even more amazing is seeing how God provides us with answers to their difficult questions. So often, we have had opportunities to share the entire Gospel spontaneously as we answer them. For example, when we were discussing the evil in the world and why there are wars and terrorists, we got to talk about the evil in all of our own hearts and how we are all broken people. We talked about how we all are selfish and don’t love other people very well. That led directly into explaining that Jesus came for this exact reason – to take our broken and selfish hearts and to heal them so that we can truly love Him and other people. And we all have the opportunity to let Him come into our hearts and change us.
We are so thankful for these opportunities to share with our kids. Our prayer now is for them to not just know the answers to these questions, but to be led on a journey to know this Jesus that we are speaking about and experience Him transform their lives.