Theology for Four Year Olds

Luke is a pretty inquisitive kid, so we're used to quite a few questions...but, he still manages to surprise us sometimes. Recently he's been asking a lot of questions about God and Jesus.

One night at bed time, I think he was praying for someone to be safe while traveling, then he stopped and asked "How can God be with two people, when one goes one way and the other goes another way?" We tried to explain that God isn't like us in that he can only see what is around him, but that he can see the entire world and is with each person always. After our unprepared explanation, we asked, "Does that make sense?" Apparently we didn't bring it to a four year old level because he repeated his question again only slightly different this time. Sigh...these are big things to explain for all of us, much less trying to make sense to a literal four year old.

Today in the car, he asked how Jesus died on the cross. I explained that people did not believe he was God's son and wanted to kill him and that he was nailed on a cross and hurt until he died. Then I ventured into the why he died, so we could be forgiven and that Jesus was now in heaven. He made the connection himself of Jesus dying on the cross to communion and that "the juice is like Jesus' blood and the bread is like his body". He seems to understand that Jesus is in heaven, but he then asked why Jesus was still on the cross. (I'm wondering if this question comes from pictures he's seen of him on the cross???) I explained that Jesus was taken off the cross after he died, that he was buried, and came alive again after three days. I told him we could read about it again from his Bible book since he didn't really remember the part about Jesus being buried.

Whew...I may have two years of Bible college education under my belt, but it's still difficult to know how to answer Luke's questions and to explain who God is so he understands. I know we have years ahead of continued learning and more, and more, and more questions.

Luke seems to ebb and flow with his "theological" thoughts. Last month he had a lot of questions after watching his first baptism service at church and last fall he had a lot of questions after we lost our baby. He always gets sad when we talk about heaven. He usually says something like "I don't want to leave you guys and our house" when we tell him about going to heaven after we die. I reassure him that it will be a wonderful place and that we will know people there that died before us. (Though I don't know how much he remembers anyone we know that has died.)

So, these are some of the deep thoughts at our house and our attempts at explaining many things that we do not completely understand to our little man. I just like that he's comfortable asking us questions and wants to learn and understand.