Things A Child Can Teach Us

I am so thankful for the New Testament Scriptures. They remind us that Jesus had a high regard for children. This is interesting because children were not viewed favorably in ancient Israel. They were considered one of the lowest elements in society.

Children, along with women, old men, and slaves, were viewed as physically weak burdens on society who had little value to the wider life of the community. In Greece and Rome, it was an accepted practice to abandon unwanted children along the roadsides to die. Jesus’ attitude toward children could not have been more different. He warned his followers not to despise children nor to cause them to stumble.

Children are great teachers. An anonymous author has made a list of some things you don’t know until you have kids. For example, without kids you wouldn’t know:

Who John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt is.

You wouldn’t know how to change a diaper in the dark, in a parked car, on a standing child, and all of the above simultaneously…..

You wouldn’t know which lines of “The Cat in the Hat” and “If I Ran the Circus” can be skipped over without a child noticing.

Or the locations of public restrooms all across town.

Or, how little sleep a human body truly needs to function.

You wouldn’t know almost every Disney lyric ever penned.

Or why they call them Happy Meals.

Or the blessedness of naps.

And finally, without children you wouldn’t know how much you can love one human being.

There are many more things we can learn from our children. Let me suggest a few.

For one thing, we wouldn’t know what unrestrained joy is. Watch a child at play and you will usually hear the wonderful sound of laughter.

According to experts in the field, children laugh 400 times per day on average, whereas adults laugh only 17 times per day. As we grow older, we lose the exuberant happiness of childhood. If it gets to you that your children are too exuberant at times, remind yourself to thank God for that exuberance. It is a sign that they are happy and healthy.

Every time you hear a child laugh, give thanks to God. And don’t allow your responsibilities to rob you of the gift of laughter. I know, for us adults life can be stressful.

We all understand. Life is stressful. We need children or grandchildren to remind us what unrestrained joy is all about.

Children also teach us about unrestrained love. Most of us have encountered that love at some time in our lives and it brought us indescribable joy.

Children know how to express love in the most beautiful ways. And their love moves beyond the boundaries we adults put on our love. For example, they don’t reserve their love for people who are like them.

Sometimes children understand the heart of Jesus better than adults. Maybe that’s the point Jesus was trying to get across. Children teach us about unrestrained joy, unrestrained love, and most of all, about unrestrained faith.

(For a more complete message on what we can learn from children, join us at Monticello First UMC September23 at 11 a.m.for worship.)