By all accounts, my friends Nolan and Adiya think they have boring testimonies of God’s grace.

They grew up in the same church in Northern Virginia, surrounded by Christian parents and a congregation that faithfully raised them in the Lord. They went to different colleges and churches for a time, but kept in touch and one day got married. Now they are raising their two daughters in a church near the one they grew up in.

Early on in our friendship, this couple confessed to my husband and me that they wished their stories were more exciting, that they had a prodigal-son past that they had left. They wanted to have that dramatic break so they would always remember what God had saved them from.

Oh, but to never have known a day where you didn’t know Jesus!

Stephen and I, who both became believers as young adults and walked away from sins and sinful lifestyles, think that to have always known Jesus is far more precious than an exciting story to tell.

The truth is, whether saved as a child, or as a rebellious teenager, we who have been saved have all been saved from the same eternal fate: an eternity of hell and an eternity without God or goodness or joy.

Our friends have a certain calmness and assurance about them that comes from years of trusting God, while Stephen and I feel like we are just getting started. In fact, we have one son and a daughter on the way, and it is our hope and our near-daily prayer that our children will have testimonies like Nolan and Adiya’s. That our children’s faith would be even stronger than ours.

How special it would be to us if our children always, always knew that God loved them. If they always knew that they were safe and secure, leaning on the Everlasting’s arms. We wish not for them to have the pain and destruction that comes from acting like the prodigal son (though surely the prodigal tastes the Lord’s sweetness, too). We wish for God to guide them all their lives and to use them in mighty ways for His kingdom.

But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.” – Luke 18:16

Both types of testimonies are surely needed in churches. Long-time Christians need excited new believers to remind them how much of a treasure their faith is. New believers need the model of steady, wise faith that long-time Christians can provide.

But if my husband and I could choose, for our children, we would choose Nolan and Adiya’s story.

Let’s not compare testimonies to see whose stories are more movie-worthy. Let’s champion those who grew up believing, who had Jesus’ help through the awkward teenage years, through the trying college years, through the rocky early years of marriage, and even through the sleep-deprived new-parent years. Let’s look past the testimony to the God who saves.

And let us pray for the little lambs in our churches, that they will always trust their Father with a child’s innocence.

 

 

Lindsey M. Roberts spent years writing exclusively for secular journalism, including such outlets as The Washington Post, Architect, and Gray magazine, before she first tried to write about Jesus. She’s thrilled to explore in words how everything from cleaning the kitchen three times a day to delighting in the maritime history of Nantucket is an opportunity to meet and glorify God. Lindsey lives with her husband, a pastor and U.S. Army Reserve chaplain, and son in Virginia.

---

To get our hearts ready for Christ’s birth, Ann Voskamp is writing for us, celebrating the holiday that’s all about Jesus. Join us as we anticipate the coming of our savior. 

The girl, she hands me this two-inch Christmas tree.

A Christmas tree made of salt-dough, painted and varnished.

She gives it to me right at the beginning, right when we meet.

The boughs of the tree in my palm, they are dough, cut and bent—these wee branches extended straight out.

How in the world do you make a tree like that? How long does it take to make a tree like that?

We were standing just south of Quito, Ecuador. And Lidia’s mother, she’s telling me they’ve waited 3 years for a sponsor for Lidia. And Lidia, she’s laying these Christmas ornaments right in my hand, one at a time.

It was the first week of November, last year, and it’s Ecuador and it’s stifling hot and I’m thinking more about July than Christmas.

“Lidia, she went all the way to the market for these.” Her mother tells us this in Spanish, pointing to the dough ornaments.

The mother tries to catch my eyes. She waits.

She waits until I am waiting on her next word—so she can frame just this: “She bought these for you with her own money.”

And with one line, the dough ornaments in my hand, they feel like gold. Like an incalculable sacrifice.

She’s waited three years for a sponsor? And she’s taken what money she has and bought me a two-inch Christmas tree? I scan Lidia’s face, trying to understand.

“I just don’t want you to forget.” It’s her first sentence to me. She says it in a whisper. Shy. I try to hold her gaze,

She looks away, looks down, down to the tree, fingering the branches of the tree.

“I just wanted you to remember me.”

Oh, Child.

I reach out and touch her cheek and say yes.

Yes, I will remember you.

I would fly away from her.

I would fly home in November and it would snow a bit in December and it would get cold.

We would decorate a big tree in the living room, one by the kitchen table.

We would hang Lidia’s picture off a branch. I would set out her salt-dough ornaments. I would remember her smile and how she looked down.

We would read the stories in the Old Testament of the promise of His Coming and we’d drive into town and walk through a living nativity, go to a re-enacted Bethlehem.

We would kneel at the manger.

I would kneel there and wonder at this God.

This God who shows up in the stench of a barn.

If God avoided red carpets and opted instead to enter the black stable, is there anywhere the hallowed presence of God won’t appear?

If the blinding holiness of God breaks into this world with the cry of a child wrapped in filthy cloths, lying in a dung heap—then couldn’t God reveal Himself anywhere?

If we can’t ever fly from God, if God could show up anywhere—then when it’s exactly most unlikely for Him to come to us—it is most like Him to come to us right then.

I would kneel at the manger and it’d be so clear, right there in that scandalously helpless babe: God steps before us—in ways we can step away from Him.

It’s possible: You can abandon a baby on some backstreet behind a mall, Christmas shoppers passing by oblivious.

You can nail God up to some tree. You can inadvertently turn your back on the beggar and the holy and God right before you decorate with the ivy and the holly and I know.

And I’d kneel there at the reenacted Bethlehem and finger along it on the wooden grain of a manger trough—The God who needs nothing, came needy. The God who came to give us mercy, was at our mercy. And He who entered into our world, He lets us say it in a thousand ways– that there is no room at the inn.

God steps directly before us in the needs we can indirectly neglect.

He steps before us in the desperate child waiting for a hand, in the misfit down the street we don’t have to invite to dinner, in the relative that’s but a loud talking, dressed up broken beggar sitting at the end of the table.

God meets us not so much in the lovely—but in the unlikely.

I would be kneeling there at the manger, thinking of our God curled like a pod between trough planks, our God who paid with Himself, incalculable sacrifice, to lay down on the bark of a tree just to pull us close.

And I would remember Lidia standing there offering me her tree, that angel.

And when we’d walk out of the living nativity, walk away from the baby lying there, walk across the parking lot looking for our vehicle to drive home to our warmth and the music playing low and the lights of our tree—

I’d almost be this moan on the wind:

“I just wanted you to remember me … ”

Oh Child.

Oh, Christ Child.

And we go home from the manger to our tree, the scent of God still on us.

And I’d stand in front of our six-foot-tree and see Lidia’s photo hanging there and that salt dough angel Lidia had handed me, wings reaching out to hold a star—

We are born in time, still, to embrace the Christ Child, we can hold Christ now in every hurting person we hold.

Did I give You food when You were hungry?

Did I give You water when You were thirsty?

Did I remember You at all this Christmas, Child who bore the Tree?

And on a spinning orb of Christmas Trees, our hearts can pound yes—our limbs and light and love reaching straight out …

It’d be insane to think it unless Christ Himself said it:

“‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for Me.’” —Matthew 25:37-39

Ann Voskamp is a farmer’s wife, the home-educating mama to a half-dozen exuberant kids, and author of One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, a New York Times bestseller, and new this month, The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas. Named by Christianity Today as one of 50 women most shaping culture and the church today, she’s a writer for DaySpring, a speaker with Women of Faith, and a global advocate for needy children with Compassion International. Ann loses library books, usually has a sink full of soaking pots, and sees empty laundry baskets rarer than a blue moon.

While there are a lot of books about parenting in print, and while many are very, very helpful (Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp being one of my favorites), there is one place to look for child-rearing wisdom that is most important: the Bible. What does Jesus say about the importance of raising children? Of course, He stands behind all of Scripture, but it can be encouraging to parents in the trenches of late-night feedings, discipline struggles, and sibling rivalries to know that what we do matters. Let us meditate on Jesus’ encounters with and teachings about little children when He was here on Earth.

And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.” – Matthew 10:42

At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. – Matthew 11:25-26

And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. – Matthew 18:2-6 

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. – Matthew 18:10

Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” – Matthew 19:13-14 

But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” – Matthew 21:15-16 

And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.” – Mark 9:36-37

And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them. – Mark 10:13-16

An argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest. But Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts, took a child and put him by his side and said to them, “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. For he who is least among you all is the one who is great.” – Luke: 9:46-48

Lindsey M. Roberts is the editor of the All About Jesus blog. After seven years in secular journalism, she is thrilled to explore how everything—even doing the dishes—is an opportunity to meet and glorify God. Lindsey lives with her husband and newborn son in Virginia.

At Haven Today, we focus a lot on books that will lead adults to Jesus, or help adults to understand and love Jesus more. But we can’t forget about the kids. I did a quick poll of friends and a few others sources and rounded up the results of a very unscientific poll: the top five books that lead children to Jesus.

1. The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name by Sally Lloyd-Jones
   This book gets recommended to me more than any other out there. One friend described reading it as “a quiet time for me, too.” Instead of being a book about what kids should or shouldn’t do, based on Biblical characters, Lloyd-Jones really focues on what God is saying about us, him, and Christ in each story of the Bible. (Here Charles Morris talk to Lloyd-Jones: Go to Program Archives, scroll down and then click on her name for a series of interviews.)
2. God’s Names by Sally Michael
   Sally Michael, the co-founder of Children Desiring God, a ministry at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, where pastor John Piper preaches, writes a book for older children (eight and up) that explains what God’s different names mean. Each chapter includes scripture references, topics to discuss with parents, and activities to do.
3. Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing by Sally Lloyd-Jones
   If we put The Jesus Storybook Bible on here, we had to put Lloyd-Jones’s newest book, a devotional for children.
4. Leading Little Ones to God by Marian M. Schoolland
   Pair children’s Bibles with this book that explains what God is saying in the Bible about his holiness, what it means to be a sinner, and more.
5. Write Your Own
   One of my friends is writing her own book of Bible memory verses for her daughter. “If she can memorize ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ word for word, why not something a little more useful?” she asks. I was floored by her submission. What a great idea.
   

This is just a list to get you started. What others would you add to it?

P.S. Here’s one for parents navigating the wide world of children’s books: Honey for a Child’s Heart by Gladys Hunt. After helpful chapters on why books are important and how to make decisions about books, she offers lists of books separated by children’s ages and book topics, including one list on nourishing your child’s spiritual life.

As I waited for sleep to come in my bunk earlier, I thought back on a FaceTime chat I had with the Mrs. last night. She placed him in the middle of the bed and jokingly asked me to watch the boy while she stepped away for a minute. She intentionally set her iPad far away from him so that he couldn’t reach it and hang up on the conversation. I decided that such an arrangement wouldn’t do.

As soon as she left, I watched him in his normal distraction mode, lying on his back and flailing his legs like a turtle, perfectly amused with something so simple. He was probably six to eight feet from the iPad, partially obscured by some form of bedding. I called for him, and watched him roll himself over and poke his head up over the covers and smile at me. He then went back into distraction mode.

I called again, “Hey little one, over here!” He poked his head up again, smiled, and then begin to move. I saw limbs flailing every which direction, and every so often, his smiling face popped back up to track his progress. Eventually, he made his way over to the phone, and likely confused about what to do next, kept shifting around. Over and over, the screen would fill will a blast of red hair. I kept talking in a softer voice, and right before the wifey came back, his smiling face appeared in front of mine.

The wifey chuckled when she walked into the room and saw him looking into the iPad: “How’d you get over there?”

It was a special moment for me. The boy and I don’t really have any alone time together. Why would we? And any communication we could have at his age is hindered by my ignorance in relating to an infant, since I have not been there to learn and grow with him. Sure my boy is very social just like I am, but I would like to think that he knows my voice and responds to my call.

When I return, he might not recognize the scrawy frame attached to these pointy ears and goofy smile, but he will know his daddy.

I know it’s an inexact analogy, but I thought about this experience in relation to Jesus as the Good Shepherd (John 10). His sheep know the sound of His voice. Jesus told us that the recovery of one lost sheep brings rejoicing to the hosts of heaven (Luke 15).

Could it be that my overwhelming love and delight in my boy is a pale reflection of our Father’s love for His children? Such knowledge—that a holy God could look upon a sinner like me and for Christ’s sake draw me to Him—dumfounds me.

Rev. Stephen Roberts is an associate pastor in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sterling, Va., a chaplain in the U.S. Army Reserves., and husband to Lindsey Roberts, the editor of the All About Jesus blog. He is currently serving a tour in Afghanistan, having left in May when his son was three weeks old.

Sally Lloyd-Jones, born in England and raised in Africa, is author of The Jesus Storybook Bible (a Moonbeam Award Gold Medal Winner), Just Because You’re Mine, and Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing. She now lives in New York. 

Almost overnight, my eight-year-old niece went from being a vivacious little girl who sang her way through life—as if she were singing the soundtrack of her own life the movie—and became a frightened, withdrawn child who spoke so softly you could barely hear her. It was as if she were literally losing her voice, losing herself. And then we found out she was being bullied at school.

Later, she told me that she thought if she tried not to be her, she wouldn’t get in trouble.

It broke my heart, and I wished she had a book to read before school to hear what God says about her, not what those bullies were saying about her. So I thought I better write one—it’s called Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing, and it became a book of hope for children.

Children look to us for everything. But in all that we’ve given children, have we forgotten to give them hope? Have we left them in despair, looking at what they should do but don’t? Looking at who they should be but aren’t?

How do we give hope to children?

When we take the focus off them and put it back on God where it belongs.

When we tell them truths like:

God holds the oceans in the palm of his hand. If he can hold the oceans, he can hold you. (p. 106)

If God cares for the tiniest sparrow – how much more must he care for you, his child? (p. 152)

If Jesus can calm a storm on a lake, he can calm the storm in your heart. (p. 181)

God sees not just who you are – but who he is going to make you. (p. 145)

Faith isn’t just you holding on to God. It’s God holding on to you. (p. 127)

We give hope to children when we tell them what matters most.

They don’t need to be told to try harder, believe more, do it better. That just leaves them in despair. The moral code always leaves us in despair. We can never live up to it.

No. We don’t need a moral code.

We need a Rescuer.

When I go to churches and speak to children, I ask them two questions: First, “How many people here sometimes think you have to be good for God to love you?” They tentatively raise their hands. I raise my hand along with them. Second, “How many people here sometimes think that if you aren’t good, God will stop loving you?” They look around and again raise their hands.

These are children in Sunday schools who know the Bible, and yet they have somehow missed the most important thing of all.

They have missed what the Bible is all about.

They are children like I once was. I thought God couldn’t love me because I wasn’t doing it right.

How do we help? What can we do? Teach children that the Bible is not about them.

The Bible isn’t about them and what they should be doing. It’s about God and what He has done. It’s not a book of rules telling you how to behave so that God will love you. It’s not a book of heroes giving you people to copy so that God will love you.

The Bible is most of all a story—the story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them. And in spite of everything, no matter what, whatever it cost Him—God won’t ever stop loving his children… with a wonderful, Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always, and Forever Love.

Are we telling children the Story—or teaching them a lesson?

My niece didn’t need another lesson.

What she needed to know was that she is loved—with a Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always, and Forever Love.

What she needed was to be invited into the Story. What she needed was to meet the Hero and become part of His magnificent Story.

Because the rules don’t change you. But the Story—God’s Story—can.

How do we instill a love for God in children?

Simply by telling them the Story—the Story of how God loves His children and comes to rescue them. By telling it well. Telling it faithfully. Telling it simply. Telling it without dumbing it down. Telling it without explaining it to death. Telling it without drilling it down into a moral lesson.

Stories don’t tell the truth confrontationally. They don’t coerce you. They don’t argue with you to believe them. They just are.

The power of the story isn’t in summing it up, drilling it down, or reducing it to an abstract idea. The power of the story isn’t in the lesson.

The power of the story IS the story.

When God sent the prophet Nathan to King David (2 Sam. 12:1-4), Nathan didn’t confront David with a sermon about his sin but told him a story. David didn’t see it coming. The story got by his defenses.

That’s the thing about a story—it doesn’t come at you directly and raise a wall of defense. It comes around the side and captures your heart.

With the release of Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice on Easter weekend, it’s easy to see the religious symbolism present in comic book characters.

Movie studios don’t try to hide it. In fact, director Zach Snyder embraced the symbolism of Christ in Man of Steel, saying, “The Christ-like parallels, I didn’t make that stuff up … That stuff is there … That is the tried-and-true Superman metaphor.”

Here are some of the similarities. Can you recognize who is who on this list?

• His true father sent him to earth to save humanity.
• His earthly father was a humble tradesman.
• He dwelt among men, not revealing his true identity until the beginning of his mission at the age of 33.
• He willingly sacrificed himself for the good of mankind.

It’s uncanny. Any of these statements could be referring to Clark Kent of Kansas or Jesus Christ of Nazareth. In Man of Steel, Superman even stands in the shape of a crucifix as he floats away from a space ship, on his way to save the world.

But it isn’t abnormal for the hero in popular culture to have the same traits and characteristics of Christ. You see it in many of the major protagonists in movies and literature:

(Warning: May contain spoilers)

• The Matrix: Neo was the prophesied, sacrificial savior who rose from the dead to save humanity.
• Harry Potter: Lord Voldemort’s reign of terror could only be stopped if Harry would willingly sacrifice himself and conquer death.
• Lord of the Rings: Frodo Baggins became the sacrificial lamb who bore the burden of evil (the one ring) on behalf of the good people of Middle Earth.

Other Christ figures include Tony Stark in the first Avengers, John Connor in The Terminator, Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia, Mufasa in The Lion King, and Ralph in Wreck-It Ralph. 

The list goes on. But why do so many of the great stories in media and literature have such strong similarities to the greatest story ever told? And why do both Christians and non-Christians flock to see them every time they hit the big screen?

It’s because humans are hard-wired to be captivated by heroism. We are naturally inclined to be attracted to a savior, one who will sacrifice himself and redeem his people.

Paul writes in Romans 8 that all of creation is yearning to be liberated from its bondage of sin and death. For those of us who know Christ, we are eagerly waiting for the redemption of our bodies from sin.

Scripture contains the good news that we all long for: Our hero has come. He has sacrificed himself. And He is alive today. 

We can enjoy watching Superman and Frodo and Wreck-It Ralph rescue their people from impending doom. We can even benefit from these stories as they continually remind us of our salvation and redemption in Christ Jesus.

Corum Hughes works on the production team for HAVEN Today and is the managing editor of the All About Jesus blog. His passions include running, biking, reading, watching movies, and seeking Jesus in places He is seldom sought. Corum lives with his wife in California.

Santa lives at the North Pole. … Jesus is everywhere.
Santa rides in a sleigh. … Jesus rides on the wind and walks on the water.
Santa comes but once a year. … Jesus is an ever present help.
Santa fills your stockings with goodies. … Jesus supplies all your needs.
Santa comes down your chimney uninvited. … Jesus stands at your door and knocks, and then enters your heart when invited.
You have to wait in line to see Santa. … Jesus is as close as the mention of His name.
Santa lets you sit on his lap. … Jesus lets you rest in His arms.
Santa doesn’t know your name, all he can say is “Hi little boy or girl, what’s your name?”. … Jesus knew our name before we did. Not only does He know our name, He knows our address too. He knows our history and future and He even knows how many hairs are on our heads.
Santa has a belly like a bowl full of jelly. … Jesus has a heart full of love.
All Santa can offer is “Ho, ho, ho.” … Jesus offers health, help and hope.
Santa says, “You better not cry.” . … Jesus says, “Cast all your cares on me for I care for you.”
Santa’s little helpers make toys. … Jesus makes new life, mends wounded hearts, repairs broken homes and builds mansions.
Santa may make you chuckle but. … Jesus gives you joy that is your strength.
While Santa puts gifts under your tree. … Jesus became our gift and died on a tree.
It’s obvious there is really no comparison. We need to remember who Christmas is all about. Jesus is still the reason for the season.
Yes, Jesus is better, He is even better than Santa Claus.

– By Courtney (13 year old)

Merry Christmas, from everyone at Haven Today.