So, an enormous can of worms got opened up Sunday in my 1st and 2nd grade class, thanks to Joshua, who is probably one of my brightest students.
“Miss. Courtney?” he asked. “How do we know that God exists?”
And since I’m pretty convicted that with very few exceptions you should be up front with children of this age, I responded, “That is a very good question Joshua and the most honest and true answer I feel that I can give you, is that we don’t; we do not physically see God, but we see Him through His creation and His inner-workings here on earth, and we have to find faith in our hearts that tells us the He does exist.” (And I backed those statements up with direct examples that I think I 1st or 2nd grader would understand on a more personal level.) Hopefully the parents are not going to hate me for that answer. But I just don’t believe in apologetics either…trying to force the existence of God through scientific proof and data seems to take away from the faith factor. I think it takes away from the meaning of encountering God on a daily basis through prayer and meditation on His Word, His creation, and His [written] word. But conveying these sentiments to a group of 1st and 2nd graders is difficult, so I did my best.
Audrey was the most intrigued by this conversation and I get the feeling it’s not the first time she’s thought about these things. After I had tried to explain that God is the Alpha and Omega (at which point I think I lost the interest of most of the class), she continued to fire questions my way. “But why would God create the earth? (To which Joshua replied, “maybe He was lonely”) “But if He was lonely, and God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit were all together, why didn’t He just talk to them? Or the angels? What about Jesus…how was He God…and if He was, why did He have to go back to heaven after He came back to earth. And don’t we have the Holy Spirit in us? How does God live in all of us at the same time? If you can’t see God, then what did Moses see, and why did he have to cover his eyes? Where is heaven, and who created it, and who created God? How could God have been there forever?”
And the thing is, I don’t know if you can answer these questions. If we could, everyone would be a Christian. And I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that these kids are thinking this way. I know when I was Audrey’s age I was asking the same questions….except when I did it my Bible school teacher told me I had blasphemed by questioning the existence of God and I spent the better half of my late adolescence believing that I had committed the unforgivable. (And yes, I have worked out the real definitions now…no worries.) But that’s the thing…I didn’t want to just say, “God exists, that’s all you need to know,” because I don’t want them thinking back on me as the narrow-minded teacher, afraid to tell the truth, the teacher that didn’t want them to develop their own faith, I just wanted to them to inherit mine and their parents.
I want them to find God in their own way, because I know He is out there. I’ve discovered Him in the glory of the creation…I experience His love every time I get to choose whether or not I will serve Him with the decisions I make, and I encounter His mercy when I’m forgiven for making the wrong one. I see His image in the people I encounter and watch happily as I see humanity playing out in the Kingdom all around me. I don’t want these children to grow up and believe in God because it’s logical; I want them to believe in Him because they have encountered Him.
So I ask…did I do the right thing, or should I have just stuck with a simpler answer? And if any of you know how to handle these questions when dealing with the minds of children, please, I would love to have your wisdom imparted on me.
