Lent day 23 = children

I met a newborn baby yesterday .  Well, he was 17 days old and teeny tiny and so cute.  He was 6lb something when he was born and was only 7lb something yesterday.  My boys were all nearly 10 lbs when they were born so I always marvel at the size of small babies.  Their fingernails are so amazingly tiny.   Everything is perfectly formed but in miniature.  Amazing.

When I work for Jo Jingles I spend most of my time in nurseries working with pre-school aged children.   I usually start off in the baby room, then go and do a session with under 2 yr olds and then end up with the 3-5 year olds.   The walls of the rooms are always covered in ' art work'.  The other day I noticed that the paintings in the under 2 rooms were mostly just daubs of paint whereas the paintings in the 3-5 rooms were starting to look a bit like something.  My son Ben is 12 and he can now produce a very passable likeness of any object put in front of him to draw.    We are born with practically no ability to do anything at all and it takes us an awful long time to develop the skills we need in adulthood.  Human beings are pretty useless at being independent really.  We need to be looked after and nurtured and instructed for years and years before we are capable of doing anything useful.   I suppose in other cultures children are expected to take on adult roles at a younger age than ours are, but nevertheless a child's brain is under developed until it is well into its teens regardless of where it grows up.

It always amazes me to think of Jesus coming as a baby.   He was a tiny scrap with miniature fingernails, a toddler who kept falling over, a three year old who couldnt hold a spoon properly, a  five year old who got his words muddled up, a seven year old who struggled to learn his Hebrew, a ten year old who wasn't physically strong enough yet to help his Dad in the workshop.   He was a teenager with spots and growth spurts and social awkwardness.   It is a long drawn out process, growing up.  And Jesus didnt skip any steps - He wanted to fully identify with us, so He became a baby and a child and an adolescent.    I love that.  He knows what its like to be a child - and He can therefore relate brilliantly to children.

Small children have open spirits and questing souls.  They hear God so clearly and understand spiritual things because they accept them on faith.   In the same way that they can learn how to draw or read or ride a bicycle they can learn the ways of the Holy Spirit from a young age.   A friend of mine who has a five year old son was telling me the other day about a dream/vision the child had had.  In the dream he had been taken to heaven by an angel.  He met various people there who had recently died and had conversations with them.  He appeared to know facts about those people which his parents say he could not have known.   He told them what the angel was like and what people in heaven were doing.  And then he said he woke up.    And whilst your adult brain is already trying to find explanations for that ,  this five year old was content to know that he had been to heaven and that this was something perfectly normal and reasonable.  Why wouldn't it be?  If Paul went, why cant my friend's 5 year old ?

It is our job to nurture our kids not only in the life skills they will need to be adults in this ever-changing world but in the ways of Jesus.   Just as their brains are plastic and growing at an amazing rate their spirits are blank canvasses ready and waiting for the Holy Spirit.  Let us pray for the children we know, take every opportunity to encourage them and teach them spiritual things.  Let us model to them what it is like to live an exciting God adventure and never pour cold water on their experiences.  Some of theirs might be a lot more authentic than some of ours.