YESTERDAY'S VOICE
My oldest daughter turned 30. We had a party.
( Her brother gave her a "Happy 3rd 10th Birthday" card.)
I took lots of the pics I had of her over the years and collaged them and copied it onto paper and then used it as stationary and wrote her a note. One of the memories that I included in the note was about how when she was 2 she accepted Jesus into her heart. Back then I thought, "oh, how 'cute'..." but I thought she would really accept Jesus and become a Christian when she was older and could understand. Lo and behold she began to have a prayer life. At that time she adored her Uncle George...when he came over she would run at full tilt and leap into his arms ~ every time he came over. She came to me one day with a bit of '2-year-old-theology-logic' :
"Mommy, if you love Jesus you will NOT do anything he
doesn't want you to do, right? So Jesus doesn't want us
to smoke cuz it is bad for you, so Christians don't smoke."
OK, you try accurately explaining the difference between obedience, free will, 'grown-up'isms and truth to a 2 year old. I did try...struck with conviction and stunned at the purity of her faith.
Then ~ Beth found out that her beloved Uncle George smoked. It really hit her hard.
"Mommy, Uncle George REALLY smokes!"
I told her that grown-ups make their own decisions, and while she could not tell Uncle George what to do, she could pray for him. With no more prompting than that and with no further reminders from me, whenever she saw anyone smoking she would run to me and pray with me for her Uncle George. A few months later we were going to move back to California, and George and his wife had us come for a good-bye breakfast. Beth crawled up into George's lap, took his cheeks into her little hands and said, "Uncle George, Jesus doesn't want you to smoke." He hemmed and hawwed, but no matter what he said Beth would just gently say, "but Uncle George, Jesus doesn't want you to smoke." Finally he looked over her head and he said, "I guess if you can't explain your actions to a 3 year old, you better stop."
I pondered this memory today. I saw "love the sinner and hate the sin" wholly new in the light of this memory. We say it to each other...we want to do it, but I can not think of a time I have ever seen a "grown-up" Christian do it as passionately, and purely as Beth did at 3. I realized that Beth really loved George, and she really had total faith in Jesus to do the whole work. Her whole concern was George's good ~ and without judgemental-ism of ANY kind, she prayed and really believed Jesus could change George's heart ~ and Jesus did. The end of the story is : George did quit.
I feel challenged again to really believe, and to walk out this wonderful example I hold so dearly in my memory of child-like faith.
"And he called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
( Her brother gave her a "Happy 3rd 10th Birthday" card.)
I took lots of the pics I had of her over the years and collaged them and copied it onto paper and then used it as stationary and wrote her a note. One of the memories that I included in the note was about how when she was 2 she accepted Jesus into her heart. Back then I thought, "oh, how 'cute'..." but I thought she would really accept Jesus and become a Christian when she was older and could understand. Lo and behold she began to have a prayer life. At that time she adored her Uncle George...when he came over she would run at full tilt and leap into his arms ~ every time he came over. She came to me one day with a bit of '2-year-old-theology-logic' :
"Mommy, if you love Jesus you will NOT do anything he
doesn't want you to do, right? So Jesus doesn't want us
to smoke cuz it is bad for you, so Christians don't smoke."
OK, you try accurately explaining the difference between obedience, free will, 'grown-up'isms and truth to a 2 year old. I did try...struck with conviction and stunned at the purity of her faith.
Then ~ Beth found out that her beloved Uncle George smoked. It really hit her hard.
"Mommy, Uncle George REALLY smokes!"
I told her that grown-ups make their own decisions, and while she could not tell Uncle George what to do, she could pray for him. With no more prompting than that and with no further reminders from me, whenever she saw anyone smoking she would run to me and pray with me for her Uncle George. A few months later we were going to move back to California, and George and his wife had us come for a good-bye breakfast. Beth crawled up into George's lap, took his cheeks into her little hands and said, "Uncle George, Jesus doesn't want you to smoke." He hemmed and hawwed, but no matter what he said Beth would just gently say, "but Uncle George, Jesus doesn't want you to smoke." Finally he looked over her head and he said, "I guess if you can't explain your actions to a 3 year old, you better stop."
I pondered this memory today. I saw "love the sinner and hate the sin" wholly new in the light of this memory. We say it to each other...we want to do it, but I can not think of a time I have ever seen a "grown-up" Christian do it as passionately, and purely as Beth did at 3. I realized that Beth really loved George, and she really had total faith in Jesus to do the whole work. Her whole concern was George's good ~ and without judgemental-ism of ANY kind, she prayed and really believed Jesus could change George's heart ~ and Jesus did. The end of the story is : George did quit.
I feel challenged again to really believe, and to walk out this wonderful example I hold so dearly in my memory of child-like faith.
"And he called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
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