The Wonder of It All
Ever wonder what happened to wonder? When you were a baby, every moment was filled with wonder: sounds, smells, colors … “What are these strange things floating around in front of me? OMG! They’re my HANDS!!” … But as you grow up, wonder wanes, fascination fades, to the point where you’re so grown up that the only thing that fills you with wonder is the mystery of where you parked your car.
Remember the wonder you had as a kid about Christmas?
When I was small, the dazzling concept of a bearded man in a red suit landing on rooftops thanks to flying reindeer and sliding down chimneys to deliver toys was too amazing not to believe. I mean, you can’t make that stuff up!
As in many Christian households, my parents allowed the Santa myth to captivate my young imagination, and it sat comfortably without contradiction alongside the Jesus story that was also told. They knew St. Nick would lose his hold in just a few years, and, if their prayers were answered and their modeling took root, I’d surrender more and more to the embrace of Christ as I matured.
I no longer remember the questions I had about God when I was a kid. I’m sure I asked my parents plenty of them; after all, my dad was a pastor, so he worked for God and knew everything about Him because they had a lot of meetings together at the church. And I’m also pretty sure that both Dad and Mom delighted in any curiosity I displayed toward the Almighty. The spiritual questions kids ask can be profound, touching, and often amusing. I’ll bet my parents ate it up.
If you’re a Christian parent yourself, you love your child’s “God questions”, don’t you? The marveling, the wonderment … It’s a gift to us from our children. And if we wholeheartedly receive that gift of seeing God afresh through their eyes, we find ourselves rejuvenated by their innocent inquiries about divine things, our “grown-up” spirits made young again by “childish” questioning. We regain our sense of wonder in the Creator and all He’s created.
Last December (Dec. 9, 2019, to be specific, since I’ll never forget it), I lay next to my son at bedtime, as I often do. That night, his seven-year-old brain was immersed in theological perplexity. Or maybe he was just stalling. Or both. The conversation went like this:
“Daddy, who made God?”
“Nobody made God. God has always been. God was around before everything. He made everything.”
“Did he make himself?”
“Um …”
“Did he, Daddy?”
“Shhh. Time for sleep.”
“And who made Jesus?”
“God sent Jesus to earth as a baby and gave him a mother and father.”
“But in church school we learned that Jesus calls God his father. How has he got two daddies?”
“One is his heavenly Father and the other is his earthly father. They teamed up to raise Jesus.”
“Is Jesus God?”
“Yes. He’s God and he’s man.”
“So, if he’s God, how can God be his father?”
“Sleepy-time.”
“Daddy!”
“There’s only one God, but he’s made up of three persons. It’s hard for even grown-ups to understand. But there’s God the Father, God the Son (that’s Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit.”
“Daddy, I just made this little ball from my booger! Look!”
“Ok, night night.”
“Who’s the Holy Spirit?”
“The Holy Spirit is that part of God who helps Jesus come and live in your heart. He helps you become more like Jesus. Do you want Jesus to come live inside you, right here, right now?”
“Yes, but I wiggle a lot. Will that bother him?”
“Not at all. He’ll love living inside you.”
So, we prayed together that night, and my son accepted Jesus into his heart. I first made sure he comprehended that it’s Jesus who takes our sin away and lets us live forever in heaven. He understood. He wanted to be saved. The love and grace of God toward my son filled me with … you guessed it … wonder.
In Matthew 18, Jesus says, “Truly, I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
That night, my son received keys to the kingdom of heaven.
Two weeks later, on Christmas Day, he received a Nerf blaster, action figures, and Legos.
“Daddy, I still like Jesus,” he declared, surrounded by torn wrapping paper, “but I LOVE Santa!”
Of course you do, kid. And for now, is it any wonder?