There is a little boy in our church family named Charlie. Since the day he was born, he has been the center of attention for many of us.
Charlie is two years old and has the most expressive face of any child I have ever seen. Since he was born, he has delighted us with his funny faces, his silly faces, and his sad faces.
On Sunday evening I asked Charlie what he had learned in Sunday school. He said, “Jesus Christ died on the cross to save me from my sins.” His mother says this is what he tells her every time she asks him that question.
His teacher says she has not taught that in her two-year-old class. So where did he hear it? I suspect he heard it from the preacher. Wherever he heard it, nothing could be more important than these words.
Children learn quickly, and they repeat what they hear. This is the reason it is so important to be careful what we say in front of children. They say the bad as well as the good.
Many years ago, my husband and I were living in Indiana. The church where he preached was small, but growing. We had just built a new building, and we had been blessed with a number of new families. One of these families had a little girl about six months old.
I was teaching a nursery class at the time, and I encouraged the parents to let little Susan come to class. The mom was all for it, but the dad said no child six months old could learn anything about the Bible.
One Sunday as this family sat down for Sunday lunch, they bowed their heads for prayer. When the family looked up, Susan had her tiny little hands folded. She was praying too!
Then Susan began to go through some strange hand motions, and her dad asked her mom what she was doing. Her mom said, she is opening and closing her “Bible.” Her dad wanted to know where she had learned such a thing. The mom said, “She learned it in Bible class.”
In the book of First Samuel, a woman named Hannah prayed to God to give her a son. She made a promise to God. She said, “O LORD of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head” (First Samuel 1:11 ESV).
Hannah did keep her promise to God. He gave her a son; and when he was weaned, she took him to the temple and presented him to the priest. Every year she went with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice, and every year she took her little boy a new robe (First Samuel 2:18-19).
Don’t you think that every year, Hannah talked to Samuel about why he was in the House of God and not at home with his father and mother? She would have surely stressed the importance of the vow she made to God and why he was being raised by a priest.
Paul addressed the young man Timothy in Second Timothy 1. He said, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well” (Second Timothy 1:5).
Timothy was taught by both his mother and his grandmother, and that teaching followed him through his life. He became a sound gospel preacher, someone whom Paul relied on and instructed in the preaching of the gospel.
When I looked at Charlie, I think about Samuel and Timothy, and I wonder what is in store for him. Will he be a preacher of the gospel? Will he be a missionary? Just what does God have planned for him?
No one knows for sure, but I know that he is listening to what is being said. He already knows at two years old that Jesus died for him. I pray that he will follow the instruction Paul gave to Timothy. “Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (Second Timothy 1:13).
Sandra Oliver