WHAT CHILDREN KNOW AND ADULTS CAN LEARN ABOUT RELATING TO GOD

“Daddy,” asks four-year-old Ben, “How old is God?”

Daddy, who has been through this before, answers, “God doesn’t have an age, Ben. He just always was and always will be.”

“Oh,”says Ben, taking that in. He looks down. “I’m sad, Daddy, because then God doesn’t get to have birthday parties.”  

Daddy, who is learning fast, says, “Well, Ben, you don’t have to be sad, because Jesus does have a birthday. We celebrate it every year at Christmas.”

Ben’s face lights up. “Hurrayyy!” Then his brows furrow. “But why don’t we give Jesus gifts? All we do is get gifts.”

Daddy tears up a little, if the truth be told. And rolls with it: “Very true, son. What do you think Jesus would like for a birthday present?”

Ben looks up, brown eyes pondering, finger on his bottom lip. 

“Ummm. I know! I’m going to draw him a picture of me and Mommy and you and Sissie.” He beams, running off to his room to do just that. "Then Jesus will know what we look like!" Ben calls out joyfully from the top of the stairs.

Children are gifted with an intuitive sense 

for relating to God. They are:

Open, not judgmental

Curious, not fearful 

Accepting, not resistant 

to, the nature of God

During their Preschool years, young children ask "why" questions like, “Does God wear clothes?," "Can God come for dinner tonight?," or “Where does God live?” They are busy assimilating information from their parents, yet displaying an intuitive openness and acceptance of the idea of God.

Still innocently accepting—not skeptically resisting—School age children are often moved on by the Holy Spirit to accept Christ as their Savior without understanding the theology behind it, but surrendering nonetheless with little fuss about it, differentiating the “before” and “after” experience within their spirit, integrating the essential belief that Jesus belongs to God and they belong to Jesus, a concept they see as very natural.

Adolescents develop increased self-consciousness and are more wary of the idea of God, perhaps because in the maturation process they have had to reject worldly myths, such as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy; but they still are drawn to the Ideal of Someone who is supremely authentic, Someone worthy of radical trust. Their idealism can find differentiation within church settings that offer youth fellowship, appealing to their social needs and to their beginning theoretical integration of Jesus’ life and personality with their own.

Indeed, Christian Personality Theory asserts that it is God’s presence in humankind, and in the particular lives of the child or adolescent, that quickens their sense of right or wrong, and woos them toward a personality integration that counters anxiety, apathy, or alienation that often haunt the human condition.

From young adulthood through middle age and beyond, persons find themselves facing issues like how to integrate the sudden death of someone dearly loved; how to handle a bad accident or tragic illness, wondering where God is and why there is no sense of his presence; or how to maintain faith even though the effects of aging heighten the awareness of mortality.

“Truly I tell you," Jesus said, "anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” Mark 9:37).

CHRISTIAN PERSONALITY THEORY

 

How Does Jesus' Sinlessness Help Us?

"He committed no sin and no deceit was found in his mouth" (1 Peter 2:22).

The New Testament insists that Jesus Christ was completely free from sin (John 8:46; 2 Corinth 5:21; Hebrews 4:15, 7:26; 1 John 3:5). He never disobeyed his Father. He loved God's law and found wholehearted joy in keeping it. 

Psychiatrist Karen Horney once cited wholeheartedness as an elusive goal of mental health because of people's inner conflicts. In fallen human beings, there is always reluctance to obey God, to risk a life of faith, to receive chastisement from the Word of God. And there is even resentment amounting to hatred at the claims God makes on us:  "For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will" (Romans 8:7). 

But Jesus' moral nature kept true to God, as had Adam and Eve's moral nature prior to their sin and fall from grace. This passionate fidelity to knowing and doing God's will is what distinguishes Christ from us. It's not just that he confronted social injustice or gave inspired teaching. It's that in Jesus there was no motivation or inclination away from God for Satan to play upon. But there is in us. 

Jesus loved his Father and his Father's will with all his heart and mind, body and spirit. But we are torn by inner conflicts. Our moral compass is broken. Our human nature wars within us and with other people, even if we are decent and caring part of the time. Far from seeking God's will night and day like Jesus did, we want God to do our will. We avoid intimacy with God, for fear he might require something of us that would be uncomfortable or inconvenient.

I remember a well-known psychologist confiding in me: "Dan, there is an evil that lurks within every person, a resistance to growth and health. Sometimes I think our profession is naive about the categories of evil that destroy so many lives."

But Jesus wasn't naive about the categories of evil. Hebrews 4:15 says that Jesus was "tempted in every way, just as we are," though without sinning. This means that every type of temptation we face — temptations to wrongfully indulge the desires of body and mind, to evade moral and spiritual issues, to become self protective and self pitying — came upon him, but he yielded to none of them. Overwhelming opposition did not overwhelm Jesus. 

Through the agony of Gethsemane and the cross he fought temptation and resisted sin to the point of surrendering his life as an atonement for our sins. Jesus can strengthen us with a kindred resolve to do God's will.

Jesus' sinlessness was necessary for our salvation. Had he not been "a lamb without blemish or defect" his blood would not have been "precious" (1 Peter 1:19). He would have needed a Savior himself, and his death would not have redeemed us. 

Jesus Christ's obedient faithfulness (perfect lifelong conformity to God's law for humankind and the Father's will for the Son, our Messiah) qualified Jesus to become our Savior and everlasting Lord. Jesus' obedient suffering (receiving the penalty of God's broken law as our sinless substitute) secured the pardon and acceptance of those who put their faith in him. 

"But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12-13).

Why Are Men Afraid to Cry?

I first got the message that men don't cry in seventh grade football. The coach put me in as a halfback to run the ball, and two upperclassmen tackles who looked freight trains smashed into me so hard I crumpled to the ground. Not only did I feel humiliated, but worse than that, I couldn't breathe, for one of the boys had hit me in the gut on the way down.

I lay there writhing and struggling for my breath to return, only to hear the coach yell, "Montgomery's just a weak sister! Leave him where he lays." The teams formed up and continued the scrimmage, leaving me in the dust (it literally was a gravel and dirt field, not grass).

When I could breathe again, I crawled to the sideline and eventually stood up, bracing back the tears that wanted to stream. I was learning the secret that most boys and men learn. To keep from being taunted as a wimp, I steeled my spirit, tightened the chest muscles around my heart, and clenched my jaw. Did this mean I was a man?

Not quite. The following year I took my girlfriend to the newly released West Side Story. When Tony—the boy I most identified with—was stabbed and left bleeding to death in a parking lot, his head in Maria's lap, the dam of restraint broke and tears streamed down my cheeks. Moments later my girlfriend took her hand out of my hand, looked at me incredulously, and whispered, "Boys don't cry!" 

That completed my initiation into manhood, and for the next five years nothing in heaven or earth could make me cry. In terms of the Self Compass, I had learned that boys and men are to inhabit the upper quadrants of Strength and Assertion, and only girls and women had access to the lower quadrants of Love and Weakness.

In other words, I learned to appear strong in all situations, and if that didn't work, to get angry. How many billions of us men, do you suppose, are stranded in our human development, because our self-expression prohibits the softer, more tender and vulnerable side of being human?

What I like about the Christian faith is that Jesus, one of the strongest and most assertive men in history, wasn't afraid to cry. When his dear friend Lazarus died,"Jesus wept." Not only did he cry, but he loved with his whole heart, whether it meant loving his Father in heaven, loving his friends and disciples, or loving those who hated him.

It is the whole Self Compass—this willingness to feel and express both Love and Assertion, both Weakness and Strength—that makes Jesus Christ a Savior and Friend who encourages your full human development, whether you are a boy or girl, a man or a woman. 

I don't know about you, but I love this Son of Man and Son of God who bravely endured the cross, and though broken, bruised, and forsaken, continues to open his heart to us, seeking only to make us as whole as he himself is!

By the way, over the years, as I developed the various aspects of my self through the Self Compass model, I not only learned that it was acceptable for men to cry, I also learned how to constructively develop strength and assertion. In fact, I am a black belt in karate.

Crying and karate...they are just two of the ways I know that Jesus is working in and through me to make me more whole. He will do the same for you if you let him.

For more about helping men, women and children develop a whole Self Compass in their personality and relationships, read:

Christian Personality Theory:

A Self Compass for Humanity