Saturday, 29 November 2008
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Revelife Revisited: "Does God Love Everyone?" A Child's Answer
(note: Now that Revelife has grown, we want to bring up some good posts from the archives that you might've missed.)
I'm 23 years old, not married, and have no kids. I have two nephews, though, and they are the cutest things in the world.
This past weekend, the older one, who is 8 years old, was playing his toy guitar, which is pretty much an air guitar with real guitar sounds. Anyway, my boyfriend was teaching him how to play his favorite song from Iron Man. My nephew was inspired! He sat down and told me he was going to write some lyrics.
Some time later he came up to me and said, "Look, I wrote down some lyrics!" On one side of the paper were lyrics and music notes to his Ironman song. Then he flipped it over and said, "This is my secret song. I wrote it about God." I was so surprised, I wasn't sure what to say, but I knew I wanted to probe a little further so I asked, "What did you write about?"
He answered, "I wrote that God is good and He's the master."
And I said, "Wow... that's pretty cool. What do you think about God?"
He replied, "Well, I know that He's good and I pray to Him."
"How do you feel when you pray?" I asked.
He said, "When I pray, I feel like He's all around me."
And I said, "Yea, He is around you when you pray."
A little while later he came back to me and said, "God loves all good people."
I replied, "Yes, he does."
My nephew stood there for a minute thinking, then said, "God loves all good people, but I have a question: does He love bad people too?"
I was pretty shocked at this point. I'd never come across a child so thoughtful before (maybe I'm just biased because he's my nephew, but right then I thought he was the most intelligent child in the world.) Anyway, I told him, "God loves bad people too. Bad people need God too."
And he replied, "Yea, God does love bad people too because they have to learn sometime. They can't be bad forever."
And I said, "Yeah, that's true."
Later when my boyfriend came back, my nephew sat him down and showed him his songs. I said to my boyfriend, "He wrote a song about God."
We both turned to my nephew and asked him to sing it for us. He got really shy and didn't want to sing it because he thought he'd be embarassed, but we persisted, telling him that we'd love to hear it. My boyfriend volunteered to play the toy guitar with him while he sang the song. So they sat there and he sang his little song about God being good and being the master. I was so shocked - he'd even come up with his own melody for the song.
Watching my nephew and hearing him be excited about writing a song for God was pretty amazing; I always knew that God blessed us with children because of their innocence and pure hearts, but this was beyond what I'd ever known before. I loved God even more for allowing me to witness something so wonderful.
Do you ever see God through kids?
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Comments (35)
Oh, I love that story!
I can't help but see God in kids ... I help teach 4-year-olds in Sunday School at my church. Some of the stuff they say absolutely floors me!
God has to love everyone. He loved me so He could never explain not loving all those better than me by far.
I see God through kids every day - it's amazing. They are so transparent and so knowledgeable - it's like they have a direct line that we've somehow lost as we've grown up.
Well, I'm sure He does love everyone (unconditional love). However, I do also believe that He hates some (conditional hate). I mean... we can all hate people but love them at the same time, no? Or... I don't know...
Leviticus 20 speaks of how God hates the wicked. Then later in in chapter 26, it says that God will pretty much beat the crap out of sinners (seven times!!). From this verse, it's pretty clear that God hates the wicked men.
Then in Psalms 5, it states that God hates those that do evil deeds. It even says that he'll "destroy" liars, murders, deceivers.
Oh but... yeah, I do see God through kids. So innocent and pure. Well... some are. GRRR. XD
God hates sins and Jesus died for the sinners.
Wow you have a very bright nephew running around. I am sure God will use him to do great things! And praise God that He is using you to encourage him.
what a wonderful story! God bless your nephew. i think god loves man wether he is good or bad. i think it is wrong to tell children that if they are bad god will hate them or punish them. god is not vindictive. but sometimes man have to suffer to realize his wrong doings and ask for repentance.
Thats the cutest thing, so sweet! Thanks for sharing!
It's amazing sometimes what little kids can come up with! 
You just never really know what they can be capable of thinking about!
"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
As we read that.... how can we not think that God loves those who do not love Him? Is He telling us to do things that He does not do?
@MrCheetah@xanga - You seem to be very unsure about this, as I am. Their is no way I could ever say that God doesn't love everyone. Sure his judgement will be terrible, but if he didn't love everyone that would be going against everything I have ever learned about God. God is love. On the other hand I guess God does hate the wicked. So, I feel kind of conflicted.
I do see God in kids all the time. I love kids. They are great.
I Love to read your story. So touchable...
yes!
Nice story.
@crevis05@xanga - Hahah yeah... I don't know. It's just that the Bible does say that God despises the wicked. However, I pretty much learned the total opposite; that God loves everyone, even the wicked, but hates sin. I dont 'know.... I need to be enlightened.
Wow, you got a future philosopher or writer here ^___^
An amazing and talented little kid.
Beautifully touching!! My little girl is 4.5 years old and when I hear her say her prayer, I get blessed each time! Just something about it in a child's humble voice. I know the Bible makes many references to us as "children". Sometimes I think that is WHY God is so forgiving of us...because perhaps He sees us as children. It just seems to much easier to forgive the little voices of the world than adults for some reason. I just like to think He still sees me as the auburn-haired sweetie I was at 4 or 5, :)
Again, beautifully touching post!!!
First of all amazing story. I remember writing my first song at the age of 6 called "Walking my heart to Jesus" :)
And yeah kids are amazing at helping us to see how faith was meant to be and how prayers should be offered up. The most amazing part I love about the story is when the child said, "He's all around me."
Christ knew what he was saying when he told us we needed, "Faith like a child."
Definitely see God in kids. They're that passion in my life so I constantly am feeling blessed when I'm with them. Just in getting to pass an average day with kids, bath time, feeding, naps, playing at the park. Children are such a gift.
I missed my nephew after reading this post.
One day I hope my adopted 3 year old writes an entire musical about secular humanism. XD
sometimes kids are smarter than we are! thanks for sharing :)
@Theophilus166@xanga - Right. God's love is a love that He extends to His enemies since we are all enemies of God, born with Adam's fallen nature and sinners from day one (no one had to teach us how to sin, how to be selfish).
No one could be saved if God only loved good people since the Bible tells us no one is good, or righteous, except for God Himself. We are all bad, as your nephew would say. (Bad, of course, if not defined in human terms but in God's terms, i.e.-a single sin makes us "bad" in God's eyes.)
Jesus told us He came to save sinners not the righteous, to seek and save that which was lost.
God does show His love to His enemies.
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. I John 4:10.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins...But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ....(See the whole context: Ephesians 2:1-10).
...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16.
We have to remember that God only loves anyone because He chooses to do so, not because of any inherent goodness in us (since we have no inherent goodness in us). For example see this description of God's love for Israel in Deut. 7:
For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
However, on the other hand, we also find that God does hate people as well and He is just in doing so:
As it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. 14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! 15 For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. Romans 9:13-16.
My youngest brother (age 9) often shows me spiritual truths that astonish me because he is so young. I was home from college last week and he drew me the bridge illustration and explained how someone could have a relationship with Christ. I think about how purely he loves the Lord, and how eager he is to share that love...and it saddens me to think that so many have that love yet don't share it. Children are truly a blessing =)
That is so sweet, and very enlightening. I'm impressed that an 8-year-old wrote lyrics and a melody, too.
I won't be having kids for a few years (at least, that's the plan), but my older sister has four. The oldest is 13, the middle kids are 5-year-old twins, and the youngest is 4--- and the only boy. Poor guy!
Anyway, the twin girls are probably the most enlightening. They have schizencephaly, which is basically a brain disorder where there are "clefts" in the brain, so big chunks of their brains are either underdeveloped or not really there. The brain is a phenomenal thing, and they're a lot more developed than their first doctors thought they would be (my sister and her husband were told that the girls would be vegetables without any personality). They can't walk or talk, but they do communicate and they most certainly have personalities. In any case, my nieces and nephew have taught me a lot, and I'm very grateful that God can teach us through kids. I never could have imagined that creatures that are so cute and innocent would be such good teachers.
@naphtali_deer@xanga - As far as Jacob and Esau, I think it's hard to use that to say God hates people, because Jacob and Esau are often used metaphorically. Dr. Ben Witherington argues in his commentary on the book that in Romans 9, Paul is speaking more of the roles of individuals in the history of Israel.
While it says taht God "hated" Esau, Esau is often used to refer to the Edomites, who were his descendents. Malachi 1 is an example of this. The phrase "hated" perhaps is meant to show that God favored Jacob and his descendents, but to say that God "hated" Esau as an individual as we think of it, may not be accurate. The Edomites were enemies of Israel, and Paul was probably referring to "Esau" as the group of people who were enemies to Israel.
All that to say that I'm not sure that scripture is necessarily good reason to say that God hates individual people. Check out Witherington's commentary on Romans. He discusses it more at length than I ever could.