Sunrise

Cue the "Lion King" opening theme.

Tonight, I had a talk with Jonah about some behavioral problems at school. Part of his discipline was writing a letter to his teacher about why he was wrong and what he was going to do next time differently. In discussing this with him, the conversation naturally led to the topic of God's grace and forgiveness. Little did we know that Hannah was outside the door, eavesdropping.

As I understand it, Hannah then went to Kelly in our bedroom and told her that she was ready to "ask God into her heart". When asked why, she said that she heard me talking to Jonah about God's power over sin and His forgiveness. It turns out too that a similar discussion had taken place today in her kindergarten class.

Trying to be responsible Christian parents, we felt it best to ask her what it was that she wanted to do, and why.

She basically said that she wanted to have God in her heart and that she didn't want to sin anymore. After that, I tried to explain the gospel again in 6 year-old language and make sure that she understood.

As far as any two people can discern that someone else truly gets what their saying, Kelly and I are confident that we communicated clearly that:

1. God made us and is perfect, or holy.

2. Because He is holy, He cannot tolerate sin.

3. He must punish sin by way of death.

4. We all sin.

5. He loved us enough to give up His own Son to take the punishment of our sin.

6. All we have to do is turn from our sin and trust in Jesus' work on the cross for our saving us from our sin.

Neither Kelly nor I have what many would consider a scandalous "drugs and alcohol" salvation experience. Both of us came to know Christ early in life, being raised by Christian parents, and being taught to believe the gospel as much as we were taught to believe in George Washington and the lunar landings. There was never really any internal, emotional crisis where we were on the brink of believing or not. However, for both of us, there was a moment we can both point to where, unprompted by anyone else, we sought out a parent, and told them we recognized our own sinfulness and knew that all we had learned about God's holiness applied to us, too and that we needed to let God know we wanted to respond to Him, personally. Of course, as time went by and our young brains full of mush became capable of more complex thoughts, more and more of the weightiness of that decision and event became more obvious.

It's hard to point to the specific moment when the sun rises. At one moment, it's not there. Then it's there, but more of it is still coming up. Then, all of it's there. Not a perfect analogy, I know, but how does one illustrate the greatest miracle in the world?

Kelly and I have been praying for a long time that the Holy Spirit would touch Hannah's heart and convict her and begin to show her her need for Him. As Hannah delicately prayed tonight, unprompted by us, we rejoiced as we believe the sun is beginning to come up in her life.