A child’s faith
Some people brought their babies to Jesus for him to place his hands on them. The disciples saw them and scolded them for doing so, but Jesus called the children to him and said, ‘Let the children come to me and do not stop them, because the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Remember this! Whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.’ (verses 15-17)
Read Luke 18:15-30
I love listening to children’s conversation about God. They are so precious. What we may think funny is very serious to them. I teach religion classes at schools. One morning I saw that a little girl was crying. I asked her what the matter was. She said, ‘My dog is sick’.
I said, ‘Let’s sit down and pray to God’. I then took time out to have a short prayer with her, asking God to take care of her dog while she was at school and make her dog better. Her tears dried and we were able to begin the lesson.
The following week, as I met her in class, she bounced up to me, all smiles. ‘God has made my dog better. I kept on asking God to take care of my dog and he did!’
I asked her if she had thanked God.
‘Oh, yes’, she said. ‘He did what I asked and I said a big thankyou and blew him a kiss. I’m sure he got it.’
What faith! Children can teach a lot about faith and our relationship with God. Some adults wouldn’t have thought about praying and giving thanks for a dog! We need to take every opportunity to bring children to Jesus and then listen to them as their faith unfolds.
Dear Jesus, make me more childlike in my faith and my relationship with you. Help me to speak to children and then listen and learn from them. Amen.
by Merna Thamm, in ‘Guidance for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 2002)
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