Thursday, January 29, 2015

Shepherding a Child's Heart

When a child is young, you must begin to teach them how to have Christian character.  You must begin to teach them what it means to please Jesus.  A kindergartener did something very mean to a class mate.  To me it appeared that it was for no reason, but I wanted to make sure I had an understanding of the child's heart, so we had a conversation.  The conversation went something like this:
Me: Why did you treat that student so mean?
Student:  I don't know.
Me:  Did they do something to you?
Student:  No.
Me:  So you just felt like treating them mean for no reason?
Student.  Yes.
Me:  Do you have Jesus in your heart?
Student:  Yes
Me:  Does Jesus want you to treat your friends and classmates unkind?
Student:  No.
Me:  Who wants you to be mean to your classmates?
Student:  The Sneaky Snake (the devil)
Me:  Do you have to listen to him?
Student:  (smiling) No!
Me:  I understand that sometimes you may want to be mean or to do something wrong, but those times you have that feeling to do that, you know what you can tell that ole sneaky snake??
Student:  (giggling) What?!
Me:  You tell that old Sneaky Snake, 'I am not listening to you Sneaky Snake!  I belong to Jesus!' Now what are you going to tell that ole Sneaky Snake?
Student:  (laughing) I am not listening to you Sneaky Snake!  I belong to Jesus!
Me:  That's right!

I pray she never forgets that lesson and may it carry her all the way through adulthood.

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