His little voice was teary and very serious. He had some very hard questions for Daddy.
At the first hesitant words, Daddy stopped what he was doing at the desk and took him on his lap. He is almost getting too big. His legs dangle on the ground. He is 9.
"Dad, how do you know if you want to be a Christian for the right reason? " His words kinda tumbled and jumbled from there. His thoughts were difficult for him to form.
Paraphrased something like this, "I don't really intentionally do wrong things. But I do wrong things sometimes. Does that mean I will go to hell? I don't want to go to Hell . I want to go to Heaven. But I don't know if being afraid of going to Hell is a reason to be a christian."
Wise little man.
Mommy had stopped on the stairs at the first words and came back to join the conversation somewhere in the middle there. This was going to be an important conversation.
My husband gently , slowly, explained salvation, discipleship, love and fear , motivations and convictions with him. Big concepts, are sometimes hard to put into words clearly enough for such important questions in one so young.
It was one of those moments when you know the gravity of your responsibility of training this little one for life, for God , for eternity.
Big questions; Hard questions; Wise questions. Thank you , Lord for your infinitely, gentle, leading of your little ones.
Questions....questions that a lot of us adults need to ponder long and hard ourselves.
Are we a Christian for the right reasons?
Wow awesome little story. I truly think if we all set down and really searched our hearts we might have the same question. I took me a year after asking for forgiveness that I realized that its not about fear but about love. Great thoughts I miss you two
ReplyDeleteGalen, I thought , too, it was amazing that he was able to see that there could be that wrong reason for wanting to serve God. Praise God, He can allow our kids to see it clearly long before we were able to!
DeleteWe miss you, too!! I keep hoping we can just sit down and catch up one of these times. I miss your writing too. You need to take it up again! :)