Category Archives: Children

I don’t know.

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When I was a young mother, I wanted with all my heart to give good answers to the questions my 7 children asked, especially their questions about God.

When they asked and I didn’t know the answer, I responded with what I thought was an answer. And if I couldn’t come up with that, I just made it up, but of course it was done with sterling intentions. Every answer was given with a desire to make God so appealing, they couldn’t help but love him.

The problem was, I wasn’t always feeding them info that had come from the Bible. An even greater travesty, though, was that by answering all their questions definitively, I was giving them the impression God could be fully understood. Despite him telling us we can’t know everything about him, I was acting as though I was the one exception to that, and had him all figured out.

Even writing that sentence makes me tremble.

Although God is never at a loss for answers, we need to admit that we can be. Take these tough questions, for example, from children:

  1. Will I have my same name in heaven?
  2. How can hell be dark if there is fire there?
  3. Why do people get mad if Jesus is in their hearts?
  4. Were there dinosaurs on the ark?
  5. Why does God love people?

When I was asked these kinds of things, I’d launch off with a babbling non-answer that left the kids confused and me, too. The best (and most honest) response would have been, “Honey, I wish I could answer that, but I just don’t know.”

James Dobson always said parents are a child’s first model of God. Our youngsters watch us carefully and buy into what we say and do as absolute truth. Without even realizing it, my non-answers were leading them away from him instead of toward him.

God is willing to take a chance on us when he entrusts us with children to raise, but he knows it’s a challenging job and doesn’t give them to us without offering to co-parent. When we answer our children with a straightforward I-don’t-know, I believe God will fill in whatever blank is in their minds with exactly what what they need to satisfy the question. After all, he says those who sincerely seek him will find him, and no questioner is more sincere than a child.

Surely God is pleased when we honestly speak an I-don’t-know, because that represents a “yes” to his mysterious divinity. What seems like an inadequate answer can be an arrow that simultaneously points to our limitations and his limitlessness. In other words, answering a question with I-don’t-know can actually be lifting God high, a quiet acknowledgement of his complicated, unexplainable supremacy.

And when I see it that way, an I-don’t-know turns out to be a pretty good answer.

“Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand… his ways!” (Romans 11:33)

Lest You Fall

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Psalm 91 includes an interesting promise about God’s care. He says he’ll command his angels to protect us from danger to the point of making sure we don’t even stub a toe on a stone. (vv. 11-12) Taking this literally as a child, I figured invisible angels would make sure I never got hurt.

But experience said otherwise. I got hurt lots while growing up, and never once saw an angel, much less felt one rescue me. So what could those verses mean?

As I’ve gotten to know the Lord over the years, I’ve seen how occasionally he allows hurtful experiences and at other times shields us from them. Our frustration comes in not knowing when he’ll do which. But rather than questioning the when, where, or why of his rescues, we should thank him for the “saves” we recognize as his doing.

Recently I learned of a spectacular one.

Hans and Katy had been entertaining another couple in their home, and after putting the 3 children to bed upstairs, the four adults were enjoying quiet conversation. Suddenly a neighbor from across the street ran into their front yard, visible from the living room window. He was waving his arms, shouting, and pointing to the second story.

“Something must be wrong upstairs,” Hans said, and bolted for the steps. Bursting into the children’s bedroom, he saw 2 year old Evelyn kneeling on the window sill with her hand on the wide-open swing-style window, leaning out (no screens). The neighbor, having just pulled into his driveway, had seen the situation and come running, not knowing if he should head for the front door or stay below the window in case Evelyn fell out.

Hans grabbed Evelyn from behind, preventing a fall to the pavement below and a sure death. “But,” Hans concluded as he told me the story, “she didn’t fall, Mom, and everything’s fine.”

After we said goodbye, I began to tremble all over, visualizing that precious child hitting the ground in a terrible accident. It wouldn’t only have altered her life but the rest of ours as well.

“Lord!” I cried. “How could you let her get on that window sill and open the window? It could have been a disaster!”

But God quickly chided me. “Who do you think arranged for the neighbor to arrive home just then? Who do you think had Hans and Katy facing the front window when he came running? Who do you think kept Evelyn anchored to the sill till her daddy reached her?”

Of course it was him, saving her from dashing her foot and the rest of her against the stones below. And suddenly I was ashamed of my accusations.

Within hours new key-locks had been installed on the windows, and Hans’ family was praising God for his rescue. As for me, after that initial dip, I could praise him, too.

“He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways… lest you strike your foot against a stone.” (Psalm 91:11-12)

 

Take your lumps.

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Safety in this life can’t be guaranteed. As a matter of fact, safety as a goal isn’t necessarily a good one.

Take backyard safety, for example. Hans and Katy were given a set of jungle gym bars and an attached slide when their twins were less than two years old. They explained how to climb on the bars with care and demonstrated the proper way to use the slide.

Their 3 little monkeys took to it immediately, practicing not only the right way to do everything but also the wrong way. I’ve watched them climb with wet feet that slipped and delivered a bop to the chin. They’ve gone down face first into a mouthful of grass. They’ve swung from the highest bars simultaneously, crashing in the middle. They’ve rushed down the slide hoping to bang into the one still at the bottom.

Backyard safety isn’t easy to come by. But if Katy played the role of mother-hover trying to prevent bumps and bruises, she’d also be eliminating valuable learning. Every little accident gives new knowledge that will permanently come in handy.

It’s a good idea to let children take their lumps.

God the Father does the same with us. He lets us try to handle our “toys”, those things we’re convinced will improve our lives or make us happy, but he first spells out the rules in Scripture. We nod our heads in agreement. We might even memorize what he says. But trouble comes when we suggest add-ons that we think will work well, too.

For example, God carefully instructs us how to have a satisfying marriage, but we tack on ideas of our own, thinking they’ll only serve to enhance what God said. It’s absurd to think he might not know the best way to do things, and even more ridiculous to think we might know more than he does.

Those misconceptions are exactly what mankind’s first foray into sin was all about. Satan tempted Eve (and her husband, who was listening in) by telling them the only reason God forbid them to eat from the tree in the middle of the garden was so they wouldn’t be all-wise like he was. That convinced them of two things: (1) they wanted to be wise, and (2) they wanted to be like God. Their next move was, “Crunch. Mmmm.”

It’s a good idea for us to avoid thinking that same way about God’s instructions and rules.

Young children fully believe the world revolves around them, and when natural consequences (falling off the jungle gym) prove otherwise, valuable lessons are learned. If we as adults ignore or twist what our authorities tell us by writing our own rules, especially if it revises what God has already said, we’ll end up with some negative consequences, too. They might come from the police, a teacher, a judge, or God himself and will be far more serious than a fall from a jungle gym. But hopefully, taking our lumps will help us learn.

“May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in obedience to him.” (1 Kings 8:58)