By Pastor Joel Lawler

My wife and I have the pleasure of being a part of our children's ministry at our church. One of the things that we enjoy most is that it gives us a chance to spend more time with our kids.

This past Sunday, the children's pastor was teaching the story of how Jesus fed the 5 thousand people with just a couple of fish and some bread. The story basically goes that Jesus was teaching and a great crowd showed up to hear him speak. As the day went on, the people began to get hungry. There were over 5 thousand of them. They only counted the men and there were 5 thousand of them so the real number was quite a bit larger. Jesus asked one of his men how they could feed the whole crowd. He of course had no answer. There was a little guy there whose mom had packed him a lunch with some fish and bread. He had heard that Jesus was hungry so he gave his lunch to him. Jesus took the lunch and made it a meal for the entire crowd with plenty left over.

While my little guy, who is six, was listening to this story, he had an idea that he just had to share. His hand was straight up and he wanted desperately to add his thoughts to the situation that was being presented. The children's pastor was wrapping up and needed to get through with what he was trying to say so he did not call on my son.

After church, my wife asked him what it was that he wanted to say. He said "well I just wanted to say that with the fish and bread they could have made sandwiches."

There was another time when a bunch of kids wanted to see Jesus and the men who traveled with him tried to shoo the kids away saying that Jesus was much too busy to be bothered by them. Jesus noticed this and told them to leave the kids alone. He wanted them to come to him. He loved having them around. He told the adults that unless they became like the kids they would never see the kingdom of God. The kids had the right motive. They just wanted to be with Jesus.

We as adults get caught up in so much junk that matters very little or more often than not things that have no value whatsoever. We write, teach and preach at great length our doctrines and creeds. We get entangled in politics and "one-up-manship". We fuss about minute details and deviations to the point that we go off and start whole new denominations. We build walls and barriers to separate ourselves from our brother's and sister's. We expend great energy trying to prove our way of seeing things is right and everyone else is wrong.

We fight about the way things should be. We bicker and argue over what we have decided the truth is. We live our life our way and think everyone else should live like us as well.

Jesus said "I am the way, the truth and the life..." and the kids wanted to be with him. The kids got it right.

There is just something about the simplicity and innocence that children bring that is amazing. While the pastor was conveying the important idea that God can take the smallest gift and turn it into a miracle, my son gave us a precious gift by making his mom and dad laugh until we were about in tears.
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