Two of my three year old daughter’s favorite questions just now are “where is God?” and “where is Jesus?” These are, I guess, fairly obvious things to ask about Persons who are regularly discussed and addressed in our home but, to her way of thinking at least, never make an actual appearance. As is true with most questions she asks, she knows the answers by heart from having heard them so many times. And so I typically put the questions back to her. “Where is God?” I say. This question is one we actually put to her long before she asked it herself, as part of a well-known children’s catechism. And so she answers appropriately: “God is everywhere.” She knows the answer to “where is Jesus?” not from any particular catechism as such but from my own consistent response to her questioning. “Jesus is,” she begins, and waits for my nod of approval to continue, “at the right hand of God the Father in heaven.”
For now, at least, she’s satisfied with those answers (and even more so with her ability to produce them), and rather than try to improve upon or properly qualify them, I try to get good mileage from them at appropriate junctures in her life. So, for example, when she’s reluctant to go to bed and expressing some degree of distress, whether pretended or real, about being left alone in her room, I remind her first of all that she is never alone because God, who is everywhere, is with her. I remind her, secondly, that Christ’s high priestly work, which finds expression both in the sacrifice He made for our sins and in His ongoing intercession for us at the right hand of the Father, tells us all we need to know about the sentiments of this God towards us. I remind her, in other words, that God loves her far more deeply and richly than even her mommy or daddy ever could, which is something Christ’s cross and heavenly session abundantly demonstrate. Keep reading
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