You Don't Tell A Child About God

There is a well known African Proverb that says "You don't tell a child about God." When I first heard it, I didn't quite understand the meaning. My first thought was why would you not want to tell children about God. But the answer to the proverb was quite simple. You don't tell a child about God because it's obvious that He exists.

In the States, there are people who declare themselves Atheist. They argue until their blue in the face that God is made up, a way that people have created to cope with a purposeless existence. Not only do they adhere to these beliefs, but they push their agenda so that others will follow their path.

Here in Zambia, though, we live in a culture where belief in God is a given. To suggest that God doesn't exist is so crazy in the eyes of Africans that it wouldn't even register. Listen to what God's word says about His existence in Romans 1:18-25:

"¹⁸The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

²¹For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²²Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen."

As I thought about this proverb, I thought about the mandate that God has given both Kerri and I to speak of Him to our children, to tell of His goodness and faithfulness, to share with them daily about how He has set us free from the power of sin and created us anew so that we can have fellowship with Him. I also thought about our new son, who has grown up for 6 years now without consistently hearing about God and without experiencing His love through a family that follows His son Jesus.

Would you pray for us as we try to raise children who love God? Would you pray for their young hearts? Would you pray that they would all choose to follow Him? Would you also pray for our adoption of Thomas? We have been waiting on a court date now for 3 months. Our lawyer is telling us that we should get a court date very soon, but could you please pray that we would get a court date this week? That was Thomas' prayer this evening. Would you join him and us in this prayer?