Knowing God

One of the things I find most daunting about being a parent is the responsibility to teach a child about God. I mean, accepting Christ as one's Savior is paramount for our salvation and if I fail then my child is doomed.

That being said, one of the things that having a child has taught me is that babies have an innate knowledge of God, an intimate friendship, from the moment they are conceived and this continues past birth. I suppose it's possible to lose touch with this relationship over one's life, but there is such an obvious connection when children are still tiny.

Grant has this board book that we call the "Baby Bear Bible." It came from the Christian book store and was to be his first Bible. It's furry with a bear shape and he loves it. At times he sits and "reads" it for 15-20 minutes or more which is significant for a 19 month old. I think he also likes it because he sees Craig read his Bible regularly and by sitting quietly and reading his Baby Bear Bible, he is acting like daddy.

This morning, Grant was reading his Bible and Craig sat next to him so Grant could "read" to him. It was all very cute. At one point Craig asked Grant if he knew God and Grant, twice, purposefully, looked upwards. Yes, I realize I sound like every other parent who makes a big deal out of some random coincidence. However, a couple minutes later Craig pointed to a picture showing Jesus with children and asked Grant who the man was, and I kid you not, Grant responded, Jea-sus (said like a southern Baptist preacher all riled up in a tent revival!) Craig and I both looked at each other, quite stunned, but both clearly heard what Grant said.

I'll add that while we do look at his Baby Bear Bible quite regularly, it's not one we usually read so we haven't taught him the items on the pages like some of his other board books. There really is no reason for these events to have happened like this.

Another odd moment today (Grant has been full of them!) happened when Craig was burning a DVD of Dillon when he was a baby. Our DVD burner has a tiny (2 inch) screen so you can see what is being burned if you are copying from a VCR tape or television. Grant, while in Craig's arm, looked down at the screen and said "D", his name for Dillon. At the moment, the screen had an image of baby Dillon when he was about Grant's age. I can't imagine how Grant would have recognized him.

I think we don't give kids the credit they deserve sometimes.