Life with small children is pretty much a constant education. I’ve been doing this parenting thing for about seven years now and I never cease to be amazed at how different things can look when you see them through the eyes of a child or how words and phrases that we use every day (often without thinking) can sound in the mouth of a child.
That’s not to say it’s always an easy process. One of the delicate skills that you have to learn as a parent is how much or how little you can say in the presence of inquisitive little ears and brains that soak up every word you say like a sponge. We learned this again last night over supper as Shelley and I talked about a couple that we know that had made the decision to pull their kids out of the public school system and enrol them in a private Christian school.
We were talking back and forth about how difficult a decision like this must be and all of the different implications that it would have. As we were solving the world’s problems, Julie (who until this point hadn’t appeared to be interested in the conversation) piped up, “Daddy, what’s a Christian school?”
“Well,” I said, “in your school you don’t take any classes on Jesus or the Bible and not all of your teachers are Christians. In a Christian school there would be some classes like that and all of your teachers would be Christians.”
She paused for a moment, looking a little dissatisfied with her dad’s answer.
“Daddy,” she continued quizzically, “What’s a Christian? And am I one?”
I’ve been teaching Bible and theology for just over seven years but I’ve never had a question bring me up short like this one did. After taking a moment to recover from the wonderful reality that Julie really didn’t yet have the world divided into the categories that I did, that the word “Christian” actually didn’t mean anything to her, I said, “Well a Christian is someone who loves and wants to follow Jesus.”
Without missing a beat Julie casually responded, “Well then of course I’m a Christian.”
And the longer I’ve thought about it, the more I agree. In some ways it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
And the longer I’ve thought about it, the more I agree. In some ways it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
~Gil Dueck
