Sermons from a 3-Year-Old

Jonah is three. He has been three for almost six months now, but he is really into the best part of being three--the part where everything he experiences gets turned into a question.

(Aside: the cool thing about having three kids instead of two is that I'm ready for these developments. I guess you could say that I'm much more acclimatized to the pace of parenting, as well as all the other stuff.)

We were at church last weekend. Jonah used to go to the nursery during church, but in recent weeks, he has insisted on going to "Big Church" with the rest of the family. (My church still has a children's church during the sermon, so Jenny and I can still get our weekly blessing uninterrupted. The boys are gone for about 20 minutes, then they return and join us for the Communion service.)

During the song service, Jonah was listening. As I was singing the first song, I felt him tugging on my leg. "Daddy, Daddy!" he said.

"What?" I asked.

"What means 'holy'?"

I had to pause for a moment. That's a pretty profound question to explain to an adult or a teenager, much less a three-year-old.

"It means good, Jonah, really really good--so good that no person can be that good. It means so good that it's God, because only God is holy."

Jo-Jo nodded his head. "Ahh!" he exclaimed.

A few minutes later we were singing, How Great is Our God. Jonah tugged at my leg again. "Daddy, what means 'trembles'?" he asked.

I thought about the lyrics I had been singing.

He wraps himself in light,
And darkness tries to hide
And trembles at his voice,
And trembles at his voice
How great is our God,

I held out my hand and shook it back and forth. It means to shake.

"Ahhh!"

Awe, I might add, was what I was left with as I reflected Jonah's questions and the God whose praise had inspired them.