OUT OF THE MOUTH OF BABES… #AllForGod
As usual they walk in studio a bit shy and I start making silent prayers, ‘God please make them talk when I switch on the microphone, because if they don’t, I might not make sense on air.’ I proceed with the normal preparations as we count down minutes to 8:00am. With children you can never say you are prepared, they sometimes bring out the unexpected. Once I had ‘prepared’ to discuss about the attributes of God, but we ended up talking about Noah’s ark. Of course God makes things work out so well, the listener never knows we are out of topic.
So this particular Saturday morning, meet Hope, Randy, David and Mimosa. All eyes on me, so innocent and pure. Children annointed for the two hours, with a purpose of reaching out with the gospel. I can almost hear the little heartbeats as I announce ’56 seconds to go’. They then stare at each other as I go on air, one look at each of them and I know we have the connection, the Holy Spirit is here, let’s do this!
I am grateful to God for this opportunity, to spend two hours with this particular children, the parents have entrusted them to me, I don’t want to disappoint. Slowly by slowly we gain momentum, they know how this works, now it’s time to know who they really are. I do this in two ways; by allowing them to stand and dance to the songs, and by showing them some cartoon photos challenging them to name each. This crowd can dance! I have to use so much energy settling them back on the chairs for the show to continue.
We are all set to talk about ‘Walking in God’s wisdom’. Why? Because Children make so many choices on their own. Now, there are children who only make the right decision when the guardian is around, and then we have those who make the right choice whether the guardian is around or not. The former is dangerous, because these kids spend so much time on their own, with or without house rules/school rules; they need to know the difference between the good and the bad. So what do I learn? Believe it or not, I learn so much more when their microphones are off:
One admits that they always know what is right, but sometimes it is fun to do wrong. Another one says that sometimes they only do what is right because the dad is around. I also learn that if some of their parents walked in studio, they would not dance! This one alarmed me, but not as much as hearing that if I walked out of the studio someone would press the alarm button just to see if the fire brigade will surely come! Really?
With some experience with children on air, I have come to realize that sometimes they do things, not because they want to please God, but because mum and dad said it should be done. My challenge to us, who deal with children, is to always remind them to please God first, that these rules are to please God, this instructions are for the Glory of God; who is everywhere. So they won’t grow up deciding whether to do right or wrong depending on where the guardian is, but focusing on pleasing the Omnipresent God.
So we sing and dance, we share tongue twisters and memory verses, and then pray. As we walk out of the studio we have learnt that in whatever we do , whether eating or drinking or whatever we do, we will do it all for the glory of God, as we say, we will make Jesus Smile. Because when Jesus smiles, mom and dad will smile too. 1st Cor 10:31
©Rawder Kidula