Thursday, November 17, 2011

An 8 Year Old's Thoughts on The Persecuted Church

I mentioned that Nathan sat in on the church service this week. He was in the sound room and not necessarily sitting, glued to every word coming out of Pastor Tony's mouth. However, when it came time to talk about what he learned on the way home from church, David and I found ourselves floored by what he had to say. We talked about the videos that had the most impact on us, we talked about how shocking the stats were and Nathan even shared a few ideas for change.

Later in the week, as Nathan was doing his homework and had to write a little presentation to give in his class about what he is thankful for, he wrote a little about our religious freedom....and then changed his mind. He decided he wanted his teacher to see what he wrote but didn't want to share it in front of the class. David and I talked on whether or not to encourage him to share but decided to leave it alone this time. Instead, I asked if I could share on the blog what he wrote and then asked him to write more about what he learned and what his thoughts were on the persecution happening all over the world.

The following are Nathan's Very Own Words. I have fixed some simple spelling errors but left some in. The punctuation is all his and, as you will see, he writes just as if you were having a conversation with him. I should add that the tone comes across as casual with even some humor thrown in but you should know that when things appear so black and white and logical to Nathan, his brain cannot even grasp any other idea and any alternative is simply preposterous! He gets this from his dad and it is one of the best and worst things about both of them. Additionally, there is a fact thrown in (and noted) that is completely wrong. But you will know which one it is. Nathan tends to exaggerate on occasion. I can't, in a MILLION BILLION YEARS figure out where he got that ABSURD trait from!!

The first paragraph is what Nathan wrote in his sharing book. The rest is what he wrote when I prompted him with the following questions......

What surprised you about what you learned?
What solutions do you have?
What does GOD want Christians to do?


Here's Nate the Great......

I am thankful for our country's laws, and specifically the privilege we get to be able to our experiences walking along the path of Christ. I've seen a video that says 30-I repeat-30% of the world cannot talk about Him in public. I hope this won't keep up.

During last Sunday, there were a couple of videos that really amazed me: one of the videos said that 10% of our world is not, NOT aloud to speak about our one and truly almighty God. One video said that North Korea has to worship the president of their country. Seriously!?! It's like he is the Alpha and Omega! What they need is a new kind of leader. I mean, "I hope that God sends a Christian to those countries and hopefully be elected president and make a new law to only worship one God." What would every angel say to that? "Word!"

A majority of the videos said people are in jail, there is a pastor that has been shown in the "jail exit" and-wow-yelled at to promise his soul to their "god." But instead, he walked back to his cell. And, another one who had to see his entire family executed even when he kept singing about how he'll never stop believing in Jesus. Amen.

"Fun Fact" Time! Did you know that more people have been executed in the past 3 years than the past 19,000 years> Really! Watch the video I posted! *

Here's an idea: get a group together to get transferred to those countries and preach in.....ready?......public! I mean it! No matter what everyone says, do it!

[Mommy's Note: at this point, Nate's dinner was getting cold and his 8 year old bottomless pit of a stomach was demanding food. He possibly could have written twice as much with all the information he has stored in his head on this topic but you must obey that stomach.]


*= The actual fact is that there have been more Christians killed in the past 100 years for their faith than in the previous 1900 years of church history. And I am not sure which video he is referring to but I am sure it is one of the ones we have posted this week.



We can't ever dismiss the thoughts and opinions of even our youngest followers of Christ. These are the minds shaping and molding around the Biblical Foundation of Truth who will later take the Truths embedded in their hearts and Change the World.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Bethany. I must say your son's outlook on this subject and the way he stands by his beliefs with such conviction really touches me. My son Gabriel is yet another one who lives in a world where everything is black and white, and if you see black when he sees white he will debate with you til he's blue in the face to convince you to change your perception (which same as yours, is a trait that doubles as his worst and his best and also gets from his dad...lol) To touch on what you said about not dismissing the words and thoughts of our children, I couldn't agree more. Their minds absorb so much and have more insight (on such an innocent level) than we give credit for. For example, when things started to go really wrong in my parents marriage, due to a complete and negative change in my dad (who seems to have lost his faith and trust in God completely), Gabriel (my son) took on the role of my mother's crutch and, even though that is a role no young child should need to play, did an excellent job of it. Now, I'm a little embarassed to say, Gabriel began developing his relationship with God a few years before I even felt comfortable with walking into a church and therefore was only able to make it for Sunday services maybe once a month...so needless to say I was taken back quite a bit when my mother told me this story (keep in mind, this is coming from a child who, at the time had only been to church a handful of times and is speaking from his own interpretation of what he had heard in church and what he felt in his heart to be true):
    My mom fell into a deep depression right after my father left, and cried all the time, (I was not around then because I was, as I realize now, under the control of the devil, temptation, and sin). Gabriel wanted to make his grandmother feel better and wanted her to realize that there was nothing wrong with her and told her that his papa was just lost right now because its like his soul stepped outside of his heart and locked the door behind it which made it so the devil was able to grab hold of his faith and is holding it hostage and now the angels and the saints are fighting papa's inside demons to get his soul back in place so papa can open his heart back up to God again. Obviously these words came solely from what he believed in his heart was happening to his papa and stemmed from a less developed, less mature understanding of God's word, and I am only sharing the parts that my mom could recall of the almost half hour period of time that she had given Gabriel her full undivided attention. She let me know how his words managed to help her cope better with that situation and how completely blown away she was with how pure and insightful his words were and with the how connected he was with his spiritual side for being a 7 yr old boy with such little church experience or relious development.
    Wow, I certainly was not expecting to leave such a long comment. Guess I was so inspired I just felt the need to share!!! :-) I guess I'm just trying to say that I agree with you completely and that a child's insight should never be ignored and their beliefs should never be discouraged because if we would just take the time to listen WE could actually learn from THEM.

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  2. How awesome and exciting to hear and see what the Lord is doing in your son's life. He's building foundations and growing his faith. Yay God! :)

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