02/02/2018
When we look at our children, what do we see, and how do we see it? We look on them with our eyes, and see their physical characteristics, we observe their actions, and come to know by studying them with our minds, their character. We go further, and see their heart through the eyes of our own, and come to know their love as it mixes with ours and grows, but there is one other way we should look at our children... one that many neglect, we should see them spiritually.
“By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king's edict.”
Hebrews 11:23 ESV
In this translation, the account says that the parents of Moses saw that he was beautiful, but in some translations he is referred to as such things as... no ordinary child, good, goodly, exceedingly beautiful, and beautiful and healthy. Whether Moses was beautiful, fine, or some other adjective is up to the translator, but the question remains... which eyes were used to view this child? Was Moses physically beautiful, fine in demeanor, or did he have a spiritual quality about him that set him apart? What did his parents see in him? Well... the story says that they hid him in faith.
We don’t know what these parents saw in Moses, but would they have loved him less and not hidden him if he had been unseemly? What choice would you make after looking at your newborn child? What is important is what God saw in Moses, and we know from the account of his life that God saw something very special in him.
Jesus teaches us about the special attributes and qualities that our children possess, and also about their worth and how we should see them. When his disciples were rebuking parents who had brought their children to Jesus for prayer He tells us unequivocally that they are precious... listen:
“Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven." And he laid his hands on them and went away.”
Matthew 19:13-15 ESV
There is a spiritual quality about children that defies understanding; we see it as innocence, sweetness, a willingness to believe, an ability to see beyond the physical boundaries, dreams so real they cry out in the night, and more. Children can step between heaven and earth with ease, and bring a bit of it back with them each time. Often I wonder if childhood isn’t so much about learning to be human, but rather about forgetting, or leaving behind the divine. Is this evidenced by how angels don’t frighten children, and yet every time an angel appears to an adult in the Bible the encounter begins with the angel saying “be not afraid?”
So how do we see our children? We most certainly see them with our eyes, and learn to recognize them by touch, smell, and even the taste of little fingers in our mouths. We also see them with our minds as we learn their mannerisms, personalities, and characters. But, greater than these is how we see them with our hearts, and love them without reservation, and greatest of all is how we recognize their spiritual being.
Children are born with an inbred desire to know God. If taught about Him they absorb Him like a sponge, but if we neglect this teaching, or worse yet, attempt to teach them that He doesn’t exist, then that kernel of unquenchable spiritual life goes dormant.
Children don’t lose their desire for God when parents chose to separate them from Him; the seed of faith within them just remains in slumber as it awaits the rain of the gospel to awaken it. The human spirit can no more be removed than the human brain can be without killing the entire body. The big difference in these is that the brain can be physically removed, but the Spirit is eternal and beyond the ability of man to extract.
To make this point let me tell you a true story. There once was a professed atheist and the founder of the American Atheist organization named Madalyn Murray O’Hair who gave birth to a son named William. She tried her best to extract any notion of God from him, but despite her intense efforts, the kernel of his faith remained. Once grown, and out from under her umbrella, William’s desire for God received the long awaited rain of the Gospel and an amazing transformation occurred. Today we know her son as William J. Murray III... a Baptist minister, and chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition.
Our children, like ourselves, are born with the undeniable thirst for God, for the spiritual. The question becomes this... who will satisfy it? Whose eyes will see into them and find there than ungerminated seed? Jesus saw it easily... will you?
“But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children that were crying in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the son of David; they were moved with indignation, and said unto him, Hearest thou what these are saying? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea: did ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?”
Matthew 21:15-16 ASV
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for the kernel of faith you place in each of us. I thank you for Jesus Christ your Son, and for His gospel message that serves as a spring rain upon it. Help me Father to see with spiritual eyes. Help me to renew the child of faith within me, and to provide for the upbringing of my own children as I tend the longing spirit in them. Guide me Merciful Father as I water them with your Word, and hear my prayers as I pray that their seed will grow into a magnificent heavenly vine; ladened with fruit. How easily Jesus was able to recognize the children, and identify them as having the qualities that would one day make them residents of your Holy Kingdom. Give me that vision, let me lay hands upon them as he did, and pray for them. Never let the child in me be lost Father, let me accept you as easily today as when I ran playing in the churchyard, and let me see the angels, not as threatening, but as citizens of the same kingdom of which I am a citizen. I worship you Father, and praise your name. You are the One that tends my vine, and Waters the ground in which it is rooted. You see my spirit, and allow me to know you through it... cultivate us during the years of our youth that you might harvest our fruit in due time. How promising the vine, how fragrant the blossom, how sweet the fruit of your attention. Let me be a joy to you in the harvest, even as I was hope and promise in the planting.
Rich Forbes