My friend just texted me and asked me how to explain angels to a three year old. She has a son, and while they were saying their night time prayers, he asked what angels were. He's afraid that they are peeking in on him while he sleeps, and that disturbed a little bit.
The problem is: How do you explain something to a three year old that you yourself don't quite understand? Sure, I believe in angels. I always have. It has been engraved in my head since I was little. As the old cliche goes, "I was born and raised in the church." I guess it was such a part of my life that I never really thought about it for myself. I accepted that there were angels watching over me and moved on with my life.
So now a three year old is asking questions and wanting to know. How do you explain faith to a child? How can you explain to him that we believe in a being that is unseen. I've never seen Christ. I've never seen angels. I've never physically felt the touch of Jesus. How do you tell a three year old that you just know He's here. You can feel him on your heart? You can feel his presence when you're down and needing comfort? For my friend, how does she explain to her son that she was given a death sentence of cancer and yet Christ healed her and she's living cancer free because of Jesus' healing touch?
How do you explain something that I myself don't even understand?
3 comments:
Try explaining how Jesus lives in your heart. Elie asked me that the other day. Ugh, sometimes I just don't have the words
I am sure your friend's 3 year old has long sinced moved past this subject... But, having my own inquisitive little girls, I have had to describe this a few times over. I am trying to remember how I put it in 5 year old terms...
When you get all bundled up and head out into the snow, it is exciting, and though you are all bundled up, you can still feel the cold. Sometimes, when you are really lucky, you can look up in the sky and a snowflake will land on your face.
Snowflakes are kind of like angels. When they check in on you, or you wonder what it is like to have them around, think about the snowflake. You can't really see the details of the flake, but God cared about it so much, that He made each one special and unique. When it is near you, or lands on your face, it doesn't scare or hurt you. Instead, it feels good on your skin. It reminds you how warm you are, and how bundled up in warm clothes you are. Your mom and dad protect you from anything dangerous, but snowflakes they allow you to run and jump and play in.
If you feel scared or worried that an angel might drop in and check on you, then you can ask them not to. Our God is a gentleman, and He never comes in without being invited. He trains our angels to act in the very same way. Angels are not there to hurt you, most people cannot see them, and really the bible doesn't give too many details about them.
I told Mari I thought that knowing just how special an angel looked would be like seeing the details on a snowflake. God let's us see the details of a snowflake, but only when we study hard to look at them, we become more familiar with them, and we put in the work to become closer to their maker.
Hopefully that provides some insight. I do have a pretty good contact that explained angels to Mari's sunday school class one day. I can ask her for some help with that! :0)
I always remember the DC Talk song, with Billy Graham saying, You can't see the wind, but you can feel it. That's much like God.
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