Faith

What do you think faith means to children? I began asking myself asking this question over and over this morning. This week in Good News Club, we asked the kids what they thought it meant to "have faith". And as always, we got a lot of different answers. Of course, there was the typical Sunday school response: "Believe in God!" "Yeah, that's definitly part of it, but what else?" Then we started to get some responses that were closer to what we were looking for. "Believing in something you can't see!" "Trusting in something even though you don't know everything!" OK, now we're getting somewhere. Basically, kids seem to be able to verbally articulate what it means to have faith, but do they really know what it means to have faith in terms of a relationship with God?

We used the analogy of going to a doctor when you're sick or hurt. Most of us have faith that when the doctor gives is a remedy for something, we're going to probably feel better because we trust the doctor. We have enough evidence and proof that they know what they're talking about, right? Kids also have faith and trust in what their parents tell them to do; at least until they become teenagers. So is this kind of faith the same as faith in God?

A person can define what faith means, but their understanding of faith has nothing to do with whether or not they actually have faith. I can tell you that I have faith in a parachute opening when needed, but you'll never catch me skydiving. Does that mean I don't really have faith in the technology of parachutes? I can tell you that I have faith in mind over matter, but I'm not so willing to walk over a pile of hot coals. Do I have less faith than someone who will?

I ask these questions because I think kids just might have a better handle on faith than adults do. Jesus said in the gospel of Mark that "anyone who will not recieve the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it." (Mark 10:15) Basically, Jesus was saying that unless you have a simple faith in me, you don't really follow me. Think about that for a minute. Jesus isn't pressing us to have more faith. He is pressing us to have simple faith. It's not a question of the amount of our faith, it's the simplicity of it.

When you get right down to it, kids just believe. We tell them stories about God, who God is and what life is all about, and they take it for what it is. They don't try to reason their way through faith, or attempt to be better because they have stronger faith than another child. They just beleive. What can we learn from this?

Let's face it, we're never going to have all the answers. We're never going to be good ebough. We're always going to have questions, and you know what? Sometimes we're going to find it hard to have faith. But just like my parachute analogy, there is going to be time when we just have to jump out of the plane. We need to say to ourselves, "I may not understand my circumstance. I may not have all the answers. I may not have dotted all the "i"s and crosesd all the "t"s, but there's enough evidence to prove that what I believe is real. There is enough childlike innocence in me to have faith. When we can do this, especially in front of our children, we might find ourselves learning more from them than they learn from us.