the news is good, after all

Tonight, as my three-year-old and I were praying before her bedtime, she noticed that I ended the prayer with, “… and please teach Clara to want to follow Jesus.” I could no sooner get the word “amen” out of my mouth than she began peppering me with questions: “Why did you say Clara follow Jesus? Where is Jesus? Can we see Jesus? Why do I have to follow Him? Will you come, too, so I won’t be lonesome? When is God going to let us come see Him? On Saturday? Can we ask Him when we can come?”

It always strikes me in these moments how precious the work before me is, and how fragile. She is so completely trusting right now; whatever I say or do, she soaks up like a little sponge. Even if she doesn’t know it, her entire view of who God is and what He has done is being formed right now. And, God help me, I’m one of its foremost architects. Can I teach her what is true without breaking that gloriously innocent faith?

I want to paint for her a picture of our dazzling hope, of watching the horizon for the return of the King. I want to show her what it means to live on earth as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. I want her to follow Jesus because He is gentle, and loving, and good—because He’s the victor over our captors, Sin and Death, and because He’s invited us into freedom through the power of His resurrection.

And I find, as I meditate on these things, that I need these truths as much as she does. I don’t remember a time when I had her peaceful curiosity; I was a much more anxious child—merely hearing words like “death” and “hell” left me consumed by fear. I didn’t want to follow Jesus, I had to follow Jesus if I were to escape the horrible fate I deserved. For so long, when people shared what they said was the “Good News,” all I heard was terrible news: “You’re a dirty, rotten sinner and you better ask Jesus into your heart so you don’t go to hell!”

It’s taken reading the Bible many times over to start chipping away at that fearful understanding of the Gospel. To begin to see God as overwhelmingly good and gracious and kind rather than angry, manipulative, and spiteful.

But now that I see it—now that I can see His radiant goodness chasing away the threatening shadows of a fear-based faith—I cannot unsee it. It’s as if I had been walking around in a dark room my whole life and never even noticed until someone turned on the light. He is good! He is King! He has won! And He has invited me to share in the victory! The news is good, after all.

That’s the news I want to share with Clara. I want her to trust the goodness of God as completely in ten, twenty, ninety years as she does now at three. I want her to be eagerly asking “When can we go see God?” every day of her life, fearless of what might be required of her before she gets there.

And maybe, along the way, I’ll learn to do the same.

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you change and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. “Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 18:1-4