“People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.” (Mk 10:1-16)

I took a trip this past week to go back in time to a place called Athens. I was a Greek shopkeeper in the first century when a new philosopher named Paul came to town. There were visitors from all over the region in Athens at the time and many people gather daily to listen to the teachings of this man. I unfortunately was very busy in the marketplace (my shop makes toys) with all of the visitors wanting to make toys. Through these visitors, I got to hear about Paul and his teachings.

As you can probably guess, I spent the week at VBS. Working with the children is great fun and talking to them about God and listening to their answers and thoughts on the subject will humble any man. While in Athens, we had to role play our parts during the week and ask the children questions about what they learned from Paul. Their responses were filled with love and goodness and they really tried to convince me that Paul’s God was the one God. It was a lot of fun.

As I think about the week- I cannot help but think about the innocence of little children. Jesus said that our attitude should be the same as theirs. It is amazing how quickly we go from being trusting and loving as young children to being cynical about God as adults. Satan has made this world such a sin filled place, that we do not feel like we can be that trusting of something as simple as believing that Jesus is the Christ and trust that God will make everything right in the end (Mt 10:16). That is why Jesus tells us to be shrewd as snakes, but innocent as doves- we are among wolves. As you talk with your children (or grandchildren) this week, help them work on keeping that innocence- that trusting in God is the right thing to do. Have a blessed week.