Seeing God Through The Eyes Of A Child

By: Siobhan Gamble

When you look into the eyes of a child, it doesn’t take a special kind of person to see their innocence, imagination and wonder. Every child, no matter what part of the world they come from or what language they speak, pretends, believes, and has irrational fears. One minute she may be a princess in a fairytale, the next, a ballerina in a show putting on her best performance. He may pretend to be an astronaut on a special mission or set up

a special booby trap to capture the monster that lives in his closet. With such gigantic imaginations and inquisitive spirits, have you ever stopped to wonder or even question them about what their idea of God is like? God, just like anything imaginary is unseen, but somehow children possess this ability to believe even if their eyes tell them it isn’t so. We would think that this concept would be a bit more complicated for them, rather than adults, given that wisdom hasn’t fully cultivated; but sadly and it is completely the opposite. This theory thus poses a couple of other more important questions; how do most adults see God? And, which way is accurate in conjunction with the fact that we are all the “children of God”?

As adults, it is often hard for us to imagine what can possibly be going on inside of those precious little minds. Even though we were once in those same exact shoes, there comes a point in our lives were the majority of us become blinded with reality; or maybe I should say blinded from reality. It is hard to determine which one it is, but try to think back to when you were a child, when your parents helped you say your prayer before tucking you in at night; what was your vision of God?

When our children ask us what God looks like, that can be a hard question to answer. It is one of those questions where the answers will just be followed by other question because there are no satisfying answers. If they ask to see a picture of God and you say there is no picture of God, they will want to know why there is no picture of God. Then if you say something like we are not supposed to see pictures of God, they will want to know why we’re not supposed to. Try telling them that nobody can draw a picture of God and watch them ask something like, “why can’t somebody draw a picture of God when they can draw a picture of a dog?". I personally, would describe the logic of a child as all of those little cracks in-between our logic that are generally overlooked, put together. Children have a way of reminding us of things once forgotten; ironically, these little things are usually the tools most essential in understanding and seeing life for what it truly is.

So, what was your vision of God when you were younger? When adults are asked to answer this, their answers are most astonishing as well as comical. Some people have given answers like “When I was little, I thought God was the sky because there was this picture hanging on the wall by our dining room table of two hands reaching down from the sky. When my mom would give the blessing over the meals, she would thank God for everything that we had and while she prayed, I’d be looking up at the picture the whole time. It seemed so powerful and I felt so protected. So I associated that with God, thinking that he just never showed his face.” Others have given answers such as they thought God was the mountains, or the ocean.

When I was a child, I don’t remember having any visual thoughts of God. Instead, I thought of him as some kind of force all around me that I had to believe in if I wanted him to be proud of me. When I was about six years old I wrote a letter to God, thanking him for my family and everything else that he blessed me with; I always wanted to make sure I pleased him. My mother would always tell me to pray and encourage me to do the right things; and whenever I was afraid or thought I couldn’t do something, she always told me to pray about it and have faith. Faith was one word that confused me so much. “What is Faith?” I would ask her. She would explain to me that faith is believing in something even when you can’t see it. That made me question if I really believed in God and if I even knew how to believe in God. I would go to church and remember feeling strange like I had to pretend because all of the people around me “knew” that they believed in God. I remember feeling God more than I thought I believed in him. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized that there was no right or wrong way to believe in him; you either did or you didn’t. Another thing that used to confuse me was when my mother use to tell me to “Fear the Lord”. I remember thinking to myself, why should I be afraid of God if I love him? Eventually time and life taught me all the answers to the things that I wanted to know.

Whether we are children or were once children, we are all Children of God. With that said, I feel that it is most important for us to follow the examples of children in some ways. For them we should be model examples of the future just as they are the perfect reminders of our past. Everything in this world must maintain balance. In this case, It has nothing to do with age or how much a person has accomplished in their lifetime. It is about keeping sight on what is most important in life. It is sad to say, but a lot of us have already lost sight on these things and choose to harbor a closed mind. Not only are these people cheating some of these precious children out of a promising future, but they are cheating themselves out of a vibrant, flourishing life.

Article Source: http://www.religionarticlelibrary.com

Siobhan Gamble writes for EarthFisk. At EF you can meet people, create blogs and groups, explore the net, vote on videos, links and articles and have lots of fun. You can also create links to help your website in search engines. visit Social Media Bookmarking

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