Smarty, Smiley, Savior

“I’m assuming your friends are coming tonight, Mommy,” three-year-old Nyra asserted from the rocking chair across the room.

Assuming. Our three-year-old child just used the word assuming. Correctly. Spontaneously.

Dude.

Baby girl is growing up a little too fast for Daddy. Moments like this make us chuckle and shake our heads, but we’re honestly not surprised anymore. That girl is something else. The things that comes out of her mouth sometimes make her seem like she’s twice her age.

Jackson, being born in August, doesn’t have all that much to say for himself yet. But man alive, that little dude’s grin can light up a room. Check it out:

He’s been smiling for a few weeks now. He takes breaks now and then to eat and cry and poop, but otherwise he’s a smiling fool. This week he laughed for the first time in his little life! He does take an awful lot of those crying breaks, but they’re worth it when he belly laughs or flashes a gummy grin your way. Actually maybe I shouldn’t say that. I’m not the one who has to feed him, change him and burp him all the time. That physical responsibility has fallen on my wife’s pretty little shoulders. But I have a feeling she would say something similar. We love our son.

And Nyra loves her brother. She’s actually the one who made him laugh for the first time. I’m not a very experienced father, but I think she may still be in the honeymoon stage of having her very own baby that actually cries and actually eats with actual bottles and uses an actual stroller that she can actually push herself (being a big girl now) . Regardless, she’s an awesome sister and loves to help out (when she’s in the mood).

I have always called her my girl, because she is and always will be, but the fact that she really does come from me has become more evident lately. As well as having my brown eyes, she also has my short temper and my natural aversion to all things productive. Watching her rebellion blossom is difficult as her father, but I think it’s akin to my own rebellion against God. And your rebellion against God. And your parents, their parents, grandparents, your grandparents’ grandparents and great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents, all the way back to Adam and Eve when time began. Consciously or unconsciously, every single person since that fateful day has been in rebellion against God from birth.

Heavy, I know.

And why would bring up such a weighty subject in the middle of a blog about my cute kids? Here’s why: because they – and you – deserve to know a few things that are “taboo” but shouldn’t be. Here they are:

  • God made the universe. Whether you believe it was through evolution or in six literal days (I hold to the latter view), God pre-existed the cosmos and made everything beautiful in a state of perfection. 

  • God made humans in His image as the pinnacle of all His creation. He created Adam and Eve (and, by extension, you and me) for the purpose of dwelling with Him in perfect harmony and indescribable pleasure. 

  • Adam and Eve chose their own idea of what happiness should be instead of true happiness the way God designed it. While He was and is the fountain, the source of everything good, they (and we) believed the lie that the definition of good is relative to the one searching for it. 

  • Because of Adam’s and Eve’s foolish choice, we all have that same name nature, that sin nature. None of us has a natural desire to seek after God. Not me, not you, not my kids, not your kids. We’re all born with a natural aversion to our Maker, and there’s nothing we can do to stop our swift descent into eternal separation from the True Source of pleasure. The Bible says that everything “good” we did or can do is like a bunch of filthy rags to the One Holy God. Isaiah 64:6 says this pretty bluntly. We can only fall short of God’s standard.

  • In the middle of all this horrible, horrible news, God made a way for us to get back to the way things were, the way He always intended for them to be. The only way we could get to Him all along was if He pulled us out of the pit we dug for ourselves. So because He loved what He created, He came down in the flesh (Jesus) to do what we could never do – live a perfect life and die the death we deserved.

  • Jesus not only paved the way, He is the Way. The only way to God, the only way to Heaven, the only way to lasting, true fulfillment, peace and pleasure. 

So how do we get Jesus? Good question, glad you asked. I’ll tell you one thing, it’s a lot easier than lots of folks try to make it out to be.

You don’t get Jesus by doing good or trying harder – Jesus came because we could never try hard enough. 

You don’t get Jesus by not being a serial killer or child molester – Jesus came to save serial killers, child molesters and hypocrites who compare their sins to others’. Some of His strongest words are against the self-righteous (of whom I am chief).
You don’t get Jesus because your mama went to church – each and every one of us will stand before a Holy God one day to give an account of our own life. Mama won’t be there, money won’t be there, not even our own church friends or pastor will be there to help.
You do, however, get Jesus by one thing, and one thing only: believing. Believe Jesus is who He claims to be (God in the flesh), that He is the only way to God, and that He is enough to save you from the wrath of God that is pent up against all the sin inside you.
Can it really be that simple? Yes. 
But “Just believe” sounds like something only a child or a fool would say with confidence. I know it does. The Bible said it would.
Yes, there are a million and one objections to God, Jesus, and the Bible. I encourage you to weigh those objections against what is plainly laid out in Scripture. I don’t have all the answers, nor am I a practiced debater, apologist or theologian. Don’t measure the arguments of brilliant men and women against this little fool. Weigh them against the infallible and logically sound Word of the living God. I can’t answer your questions. God can and will if you seek Him where He can be found – His Word.

We pray every day that our kids will understand and believe this someday. Not just because we believe it – true belief is in the heart, not “in the family” – but because they are fully convinced of the truth.

May you examine with an open mind and heart the claims of the Bible for yourself, may the eyes of your heart be enlightened to see the beautiful truth of God’s love letter to His creation.

I can only echo what the apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:5-6 —

“You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.”

I can’t make you believe, but I do urge you to believe. And if you already do, I urge you to remember and always remind yourself of the great love with which Christ loves us.

See you on the other side,
Lane