Do you ever have days where you feel like a moron at your job? I have been trained to teach the Gospel to kids in an understandable way. I have studied, practiced, reviewed, and repeated the steps needed for seven years. I love the fact that my job is to teach kids how they can have their sins forgiven. And yet, much of my job is out of my control. I can do everything right: cover every step, ask all the right questions, but in the end, it's God's job, and only God's job, to make this information connect in the child's understanding and heart. There is nothing more difficult for me than trusting a child into God's sovereign hands when he or she just doesn't seem ready to take the step of accepting His salvation. But when I am surrounded by four children, all of whom don't seem to understand anything I am teaching them, I begin wondering if it's really God's timing, or if there's something I'm leaving out.
We sat on the floor of a school cafeteria, out of the way of the 50 shouting, excited children who were memorizing the Bible verse. This public school Good News Club had just finished the Bible lesson about King Nebuchadnezzar's dream and subsequent seven-year-mental illness, and these children had just indicated that they wanted to know more about God's gift of salvation. I instantly ran into a problem: Raphael, the oldest, was an energetic young boy who could not for the life of him sit still, no matter what. Tim, the youngest, came from a difficult home and was unable to pay attention long enough to sit still and answer questions, let alone make it through the Wordless Book. Tim had come back in the past, but had never seemed to understand the Bible verses or any of my questions to him. This was confusing to me, as he could lecture at length on the military training of German Shepherds and was obviously very intelligent, especially for a first grader still learning to read. Jenny, the only girl in the group, gave me a little bit of hope, as she sat quietly, hands folded, making steady eye contact with me. But all of the children were distracted by Raphael as he turned handstands in the corner of the school cafeteria, two feet from where we sat.
Somehow, Raphael realized right away that he had already made this decision to put his faith in Jesus. This was huge, as I had sat with him for 30 minutes the week before, talking through all his questions and multiple Bible verses with him until he had seemed to understand. Now he looked up at me and said, "I get it! I've already done this!" He went back to his seat with the rest of the Good News Club kids, leaving me thrilled that he was connecting with the information and that he wasn't going to continue distracting my other three.
I worked through the lesson with the first two, allowing Tim to wander in and out of hearing distance. He would need one-on-one discussion in a moment. But each child kept running into the same difficulty: "I've already done this."
"That's awesome," I encouraged them. "Tell me about when you made this decision to trust Jesus to forgive your sins."
And the child would proceed to talk about a nightmare he or she had had, but never linking this to any salvific truths or beliefs.
After the fifth time we had gone through the verses, reviewed the colors of the Wordless Book, and I had asked the same questions rephrased as creatively and simply as I knew how, I was about to send them back to class. Maybe they're just not ready, I prayed silently. But it was frustrating to me that none of them could understand.
I tried one last time, going over the concepts of sin, giving examples, reminding them of Jesus' death and resurrection. "Have you ever believed in him like John 3:36 talks about?" I asked, showing them the underlined verse in my Bible. All three heads nodded, yet again. "When was that?" I asked, not really expecting a different answer.
"While you were talking about it," Jenny and the other child told me. "We trusted him to take away our sins. Because he died and came back. And he forgave us. Even the sins we haven't done yet." It had clicked.
I was astounded. I walked both children through a few verses about growth and assurance, then sent them back to sing Christmas carols with the rest of the class. But Tim still sat in front of me, flipping through the Wordless Book I'd given him to help hold his concentration while I had worked with the other children. Flipping to the dark page, I asked him, "Who has sinned?"
"I have," he answered promptly. "Sin is like disobeying your mom."
"What did Jesus do for you to take away your sins?" I asked.
"Died and came alive again. I want to believe this." He bowed his head and prayed, then looked up. "He forgave my sins, just like I asked him to."
The best moment of my day was telling Tim, "Sometimes Mommies and Daddies can't show us the love that we should be getting from them. But if you believed that just now, then Jesus is your forever friend, who will never leave you, and more than that, God is your perfect heavenly Father who will always do only good, not bad."
I have no idea why it clicked. I've gone over and over and over that afternoon in my mind, trying to figure out why it made sense, what I said or did differently, but the truth is, God chose that moment to help the children understand. It had nothing to do with me. I'm just so thankful He allowed me to be part of it.