“What’s a miracle?” I asked.
My five year-old, Penelope, in the bottom bunk, opened her eyes wide and shot her hand up. “Oh! When Jesus makes dead people back to life!”
Gresham is seven. “There was this woman who was special – I think she was a widow? Was she a widow or just a lady? But she died and Jesus put his hand on her back and she came back to life.”
I’ve never heard this story before but I nodded encouragingly, affirming the spirit of the story even if the letter of it was a bit off.
Gabriella answered last. I often wonder if C.S. Lewis was this smart at nine years-old. “A miracle…is when God does something…that wouldn’t happen if He didn’t do it.”
Then she told the story of a woman who’d been bleeding for years. “She touched Jesus’ clothes and she was healed.”
I told them about my uncle Tommy. He had kidney cancer. The doctor’s treated him and failed. They told him to get his house in order, that he’d die soon. But God healed him instead and he’s still well and pastoring in Colorado today almost a decade later.
“That makes me want to tell people about God,” Gresham said. “But I’m scared to.”
It was a great little sermon he preached in those two sentences. Who God is and what He does makes me want to tell people about Him – to do something.
Belief without action, as Martin Luther explained it, is like fire without heat and light. Belief is action. Praying. Telling, Giving. Forgiving…
But I’m scared.
It’s a miracle any of us follow God isn’t it?
Weird, I’ve been reminded of the bleeding woman like 3 different times in the last week. I need to read it myself again today. Aren’t kids’ understanding of spiritual things so simple and so deep? Love it.
It’s amazing the theological wisdom of children even if they don’t completely understand it or have it all right.
Such a convicting reminder. My pastor here once defined a miracle as “a divine invasion into human affiars.” I love the picture that it brings– God coming down to intervene on our behalf, providing for our needs and defending us against our enemies. May we always invite Him to do so.
Praying for your family, Shaun.
Beautiful truth. Amen. And, yes – it IS a miracle, but moreso when we DO follow & say something EVEN when we’re scared. The world tells us to leave well enough alone, but we’re never well enough without Jesus.
It’s a miracle that God loves us!
I love reflective and insightful conversations like this with the kids, they have such a beautiful, untouched-by-the-world perspective on faith, belief and who God is. They know that they can change the world until we tell them (wrongly so) that they can’t.
I hope my kids will get this concept…soon. So far my five year old hates Sunday school, praying, and rolls his eyes when I ask him questions or tell him about the Bible
But I love this…that understanding who God is and what He has done makes us want to do something. Oh that I would understand Him better and overcome any fears to act!
Yes, it is. I’ve got nothing to add to that simple, yet profound statement.