As our Youth/Children’s Sunday approaches, I find myself thinking about all the things we learn from our children. First, when they are infants we learn how utterly dependent they are on us. We provide all the basic things that a baby needs – food, clothing, shelter, and love. At the beginning, they are incapable of providing anything for themselves. They have to TRUST us for their basic needs. In a similar way we have to learn to trust God for our basic needs. We see this in the prayer that Jesus taught us when we say, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Nothing that we can accumulate in this world is guaranteed to always be there for us. Money, jobs, houses all can be lost. Only those things that God provides are truly secure.

My youngest granddaughter Lily is beginning to walk. How precious it is to watch her first steps. She wants to keep up with her older sisters. She wants to walk, but at this stage of her live she keeps falling. As we grow in our spiritual lives we must learn a different type of walking. The closer we walk with the Lord, the less we fall and the stronger we become. If Lily is near someone who can hold her hand and help her walk, she is more secure. If we WALK with our Lord and follow his ways, we too can walk more securely.

My oldest granddaughter Isabelle was baptized last Sunday. By this act she made a COMMITMENT to identify herself as a Christian. She is very young, but I believe that to the best of her ability to understand, she followed Jesus’ teaching. Her mother and father have taught her about the things of God. Many of us were taught, too, as children and young people to FOLLOW JESUS. That commitment was not just for childhood but is for our whole lives.

So it is our joy and responsibility to teach our children, but we do also learn much from them. And in doing so we can glimpse the depth of love that God our Father has for us as his children.