WIth Childlike Wonder

Jesus loved kids. He LOVED children. When His disciples shoo'd little kids away, He said, "Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belong the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:14). When I was younger, I never understood why Jesus would say this. At that age, I was annoying, selfish, probably even bratty. I couldn't imagine why Jesus would want kids like me to own "the kingdom of God". But, the more time I spend with my five year old cousin, the more I understand why Jesus loved Children SO MUCH. Yes, kids can be frustrating with their disobedience and stubbornness. But, they have a wisdom and innocence that people are starting to loose at a younger and younger age. The other day, A. (My 5 year old cousin) had to do a poster for his kindergarten class. On the poster it said, "name your three wishes". My cousin hastily filled it out with horrendous spelling and handwriting that would make any teacher cringe. At first glance, my aunt told him that he needed to redo everything. But then she read what he wrote: 1. I wish the titanic didn't sink (he's been going through a titanic phase) 2. I wish I was in heaven. 3. I wish I could meet God. He didn't have to redo anything. He could have put anything on that paper. He could have wrote "I want to meet Garfield (another phase)" or "I want to be rich" or "I want to have good grades" or anything really. But he wished to be in heaven. He wished to meet God. And I don't think his school "brainwashed" him into putting this down either. He wasn't under any pressure when he wrote this (I know this cause his spelling was wrong and his handwriting wasn't too neat). He did it on a kitchen table, by himself. You can wish for the world, but you choose to wish for God. That kid has his priorities straight. So today, A. came over (like he usually does on Wednesdays). I like to tape things to my wall. Mostly movie ticket stubs, passed notes from class, drawings, or pictures. I recently finished a map of Dante's journey through Inferno, Purgatory, and Heaven for class and I decided to tape it up. He sat a looked quizzically at it for a few seconds. Me: Do you know what that is? A.: No Me: Wanna know the story of Dante? A.: Ok Me: So this guy named Dante, he goes to Inferno with his good friend Virgil and he travels through Upper Inferno, the plain of fire, an- A.: What's the plain of fire? Why is there fire. Me: Well, people who play with fire live there (Kinda wanted to keep everything G rated. Don't think he is ready for "people burn in Hell"). A.: Play with fire?! That's dangerous! Me: Yea...don't do that at home. Anyway, Dante goes all the way to the bottom of Inferno and he meets a three headed dog.(Not sure if he was ready to have a mental image of Satan being a three headed beast who chews on sinners yet). A.: How come there are people in his mouth? Me: ... ... well.......... anyway, after that, Dante is catapulted onto the base of a Mt. P. A.: like pee-pee? Me: HA HA. no, like Mt. P. Then Dante goes to the top of the Mt. and meets his best friend who's a girl named Beatrice. A.: *giggle* a girl? *giggle* Me: Yup. Virgil can't go with them to heaven, but then Beatrice takes Dante to heaven. Then they go to The mo- A.: (at this point he started reading the planet names off the map) The moon, mercury, Venus, The sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Stars... Me: Yup and they meet people and angels and talk to them in heaven. Then they go to where the angels- A.: Do the people have wings like angels too? Me: Not sure...... anyway, then they go visit where the angels live. Then Beatrice says bye-bye to Dante and a man named Benard brings Dante to see God. A.: What happens then? Me: Well that's where the book ends. A.: Then what happens? That question made me smile. Thinking back, I probably should have said, "Everything, A. Everything happens". But i didn't. I don't remember what I told him. I musta just said that Dante's book ends there. It's the simple mind of a child that made me realize... stories don't end when books end. One cannot simply stop at "then he met GOD". That makes me think though... Our story both truly begins and ends with "and we met God". God is infinite. And we will have eternity to meet Him. We went to dinner afterward. This is what kinda happened. A. started drawing on the paper placemat. He started drawing a little black scribble and a little distance away, a circle with an "H" inside of it. I asked him what it was: A. The black thing is earth. and the circle is Heaven. Garfield (favorite thing next to the titanic) starts from Earth and he *draws line to connect* goes to heaven cause he did something right (I wanted to tell him that you don't go to heaven by doing "right things" but by believing.. but I let him continue on. I'll have to tell him that story another day). Then, *draws lines connecting "earth" and "heaven" again* Garfield goes and brings earth to heaven. This surprised me a little. Me: Did you know that there was another person who brought earth to heaven before Garfield? He seemed a little confused at this point. I don't think many people took the time to follow his stories long enough to ask about his characters. If they did, most of them would say, "it's not physically possible to bring earth to heaven". Me: Jesus did, A. Jesus brought earth to heaven first. Then Garfield sat on earth and let Jesus take earth to heaven. Kids are wonderful. A childlike wonder is so incredible. Their concept of Divergent thinking (<-- watch at 7:43 of the youtube clip) is genius. To a kid like A., garfield can go swim underwater without a tank of air and enter boats through a hole in the bottom of the boat. A lot of the problems that some atheistic adults have with christianity is that it doesn't make sense. If you think about it, Christianity doesn't make sense, but makes ALL the sense at the same time. When Jesus said that the kingdom of God belongs to little children, i think he meant (I could be wrong :P) that little children aren't hindered by the same things that adults are hindered by. A message like the gospel comes easier to them. Childlike wonder. A., thanks for today. I think I'll remember 5-year old you for a long long long time. :]