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Listening to God as Connection
Every human has been chosen. God, who needed nothing else to be whole and whose joy was complete before one ounce of creation, longed for you. We human beings often long from a place of brokenness, but God—who is whole and holy—longs from a place of abundance and joy.
The parable of the lost sheep found in Matthew 18:10-14 is about longing. It is a story about a shepherd who longs for his sheep so intensely that he leaves the ninety-nine to find the lost one. God has been longing for you, longing to connect with you, since before your very beginning. Every child you know has been longed by God into existence. We also long for God. Just as we are hardwired to seek connection with our caregivers, we are hardwired to seek connection with God.
Notice Jesus’ first word in Mark 10:13-16: “Let.” Let implies an already forward-moving progression. The children are already coming; it is their natural inclination to seek connection. God has been longing, is longing now, and will continue to long for children, and further, children are wired to long right back. The movement is already at hand.
What begins with forward motion and continues on to what will hinder. Jesus says, “Do not stop them,” which could be an indictment of the ministries for children and youth in the past and in our time. The past teachings of the church for training children in the way of Christ were created and implemented with good intentions.
However, many of these intentions have fallen short of acknowledging the full humanity of children or of God’s capacity to meet children precisely where they are. When we adults fall into broken patterns of thinking about children and about God, we tend to move toward models of babysitting, entertainment, or worse, manipulation through shame and fear. Jesus seems to be asking less of the adult and more of the child. Jesus seems to be inviting the adult to empower the child and move out of the way. He is inviting the child and he is inviting you to a direct encounter.
What would a direct encounter with Jesus look like for you today?
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Listening to God with our children can be one of the greatest joys of our lives. When we listen to God with our children, it creates a human-to-human connection and a divine-to-human connection that cannot be easily broken. Over the next five days, we will engage five passages from the life of Jesus that will open us to listening to God with family.
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