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CHAPTER THREE

LOOKING WITH A CHILD

AND LOOKING AFTER ONE SPIRITUALLY

Today is Good Friday. What could help some has come to my mind, since I was discussing with a relative, a trouble that arose with her little son aged 10 or so.

He had been troubled by Big Bang talk, and not seeing God, so it occurred to me, that what I told her might help, might aid others. It is a very simple presentation, in  terms of and together with the Bible, which could give reason to a small child like that.

We proceed something like this.

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Where did we  all come from, the birds and the busy bees and the delightful flowers and the interesting deer and flying bats, the birds with their migrations and flights and sense of direction, the rivers so beautiful and the floods so severe at times  ? where daddy ?

Let us then think a little bit. Suppose, just suppose for a moment that it all started from nothing. What do I mean by nothing ? I mean this: take everything there is, including mankind, air, sky, time, space, flowers, bees, whatever you like to think of that is here, and remove it.

How could I do this ? If I did, I would have to remove myself and so not be able to  complete removing everything ?

Good point. We will think about that. In the meantime, though, you do not have to actually DO this, only think it, so that is no problem, EVERYTHING is removed. There is no one now, in your imagination about it all, to think any more, nor anyone to  witness, to see, to touch or to act. There is .... just nothing.

Just nothing.

Now what do you think can happen ?

Nothing, for there is nothing there to make it happen, and if there were, it would not be nothing that was there.

Good. So do you and I come ?

Of course not, not from nothing: that would just be silly, saying there is nothing there and then contradicting yourself. There is nothing to do anything. How then could it be done!

Am I here and are you, now ?

Yes of course.

Then there never was just nothing. Then there must have been something! Isn't that right ?

And it must ALWAYS have been there, or we would have the same difficulty!

You are thinking well.

What was it like ?

When you get out of bed, in the morning, how do I tell what you are like,  good or bad, bright or dull, clever or brilliant ?

By what I say and do, by my actions.

What could I say about you this morning ?

Well, you could say that I talk and think and reply  well to what you say, and can think as you do, and can be helped.

This is much more than nothing, then ?

Of course it is. You have thinking and talking and putting ideas together and imagination and freedom to bother or not bother with thinking.

You are producing all this, just as a car produces travelling ?

Yes, I am. I am a long way from nothing.

That is what YOU are producing. Now let us think about what was here before we were.

You mean, about what could not be nothing ?

Exactly. What would it have to be like, apart from anything else ?

Well, it would have to be able to make things that talk and think, and can decide not to bother, or to be interested, and to be good or bad, and to sneeze or to stop the sneeze because you are at table or something like that.

What would it take to do that ?

You would have to know how to make things that can think, and how to make things that they can think about, so that they can make sense of those things.

Great. Would you need to be able at least to think to do that, and to plan and to prepare things ?

Much more than that. You would have to be able to think about what thinking is, so that you could make it work for what you make.

Yes, we would call that by a name, logic, and say you had to be logical, reasonable, know how to think and create. I mean the one who makes it all would have to be like that; for if there is only this one Thinker, at least Person to understand persons - we normally call Him God - then anything else has to be created. The Bible says in Genesis that this is how it all came to be.

Why not an explosion ? I have been told there was one.

An explosion ? Who told you this ?

The teacher at school.

Ah, it looks as if we need another school for you, for that sort of thing is good for fairy tales...

But not to make sense of things  ?

No, for an  explosion, just that, it bangs things about, and if there were houses or people, it does not make them, but blasts them about. That is a silly idea. We need something more like the exact opposite. What funny ideas people get sometimes. There is nothing to show anything like that, and what is being found is that the idea does not work out as you go on with it, even if you were mistaken enough to start with it. I have some things here for you about that, if you are ever interested, and I can explain them to you another time.

What you need is not an explosion, is it daddy, it is a thinker who makes things. It is a silly idea to start everything with an explosion, and where is it all to explode ? and why should it do anything ? and who made things that have to happen anyway! Daddy, how CAN people talk in that way ? Things move like pistons in a car, really fast, and when it is explosion, it has no control, just strikes about. Movement is fine for creation; explosion is like dreaming, worse than Calvin and Hobbes, where the daddy says wind is trees sneezing. It has nothing to do with it, does it Daddy ? Why do people say such things ? What is wrong ?

We will  come  to that, for it is a trouble in their minds, because God has made them so that they can do funny things with their minds if they want to.

You call the Thinker, the Maker God ? I will call Him God too. But how could He make things like me ? I do much more than think. I try to understand and see in my mind what it is all about, and even what I am about.

Well John, what are you ?

A child.

Yes but what does a child like you do  ?

I think and jump and like things or dislike them and hop and swim and dream and imagine things, and hope for things... I do all that.

Good. Then the Thinker and Creator, who was here at the first, before anything else, being more than nothing, and enough to do everything that had to be done...

But Daddy, what a lot He would have had to do when He starting creating things!

Yes, He would have to make thinking for people and a body that would look after itself extremely well - did you know that we have little creatures in our blood which rush to diseased things like bacteria and set about getting rid of them - and regulate itself so that people with these bodies could act without being forever in trouble, and so as good as dead.

So He did all this; He must have done. How great He is!

And He made some things right to do,and some things wrong and not to be done.

Like a car, you should not drive off with the brakes on, it is not the way it is made. It would be silly.

That's right. Our manual is called the Bible. People should test it, and it tells us to do that, as in Isaiah 41, 48, and I have often tested it for over 65 years ...

What did you find Daddy ?

I find that it is always right and that attacking it  is always wrong, and that many people go on attacking it as if they were hypnotised ?

What is hypnotised ?

It is a way people can be made to act without thinking very much, and to be controlled by others.

Who controls the people who try to attack God and the Bible as if they were hypnotised ?

The Bible talks about creation, but also about sin.

What is sin ?

It is the idea or the action of doing what God has not made us for, and displeasing Him.

Is God always right ?

What do you think ?

I think that if we know what we are doing, and are only created, the One who created us must know far more, and be good.

Why should He be good ?

If God were bad, we would all be at least as bad as that, and some people love goodness, and follow God, and the Bible says He is good doesn't it ?

Yes, it does, there is no sin in Him.  if HE were not good, nothing could be, for it is ALL from Him, and it would be foolish even to talk about it.

But even I know that it is not at all silly to try to do right and to look for why it is so.

Yes you do, for you can see what happens.

Is sin, I mean does every one have to sin,  as if they were hypnotised Daddy ?

What do you think ?

Well I see a lot of people who are naughty and I have never seen anyone who is always good, so I suppose there is something missing. How can that be ? Did God leave it out ?

No, dear, God is much wiser than we, and if we can see that would be no good, much more can He. He has everything He wants, since there is nothing at all else before creation, and so He does not want anything, just to give and to bring goodness.

Unless  people are naughty. Then that must be something gone wrong in them.

Sin is just that. Dear, if we could not be free,  we could not love anything.

But Daddy I DO love some things because I think they are good and wonderful.

True. So we are free to choose, even if stupid at times, and sin has made things hard. If you are hurt in your heart and mind, then things are not so clear.

So how do we get clear ?

By reading the Bible and finding that from the first, when they were first created, the first people sinned, and things died in them, in their hearts, and then they died in their bodies too.

How do we get out of this ?

By finding what God has done to fix it up.

What is that ? Is that something to do with Jesus ?

Yes it is. Since we died for breaking the rules of life, He who had made us, before He became a man, and then being like that, went on to die for us, so that we would not have to do it.

But Daddy, Grandpa died.

Yes, I know, but that is just until everyone who finds life in Jesus is complete, like a team, then they all are raised up, you know, like the case when we were all created, with the same sort of thinking and power.

Why can't we be raised up instead of dying and having to wait till all the rest of the team is ready to be raised up ?

That is the way the Creator planned it - and by the way, when He made us, He showed He was the Creator, but when Jesus died for us, He showed He was the Saviour. He saves us from death.

From anything else ?

Yes from being hypnotised, if you want to say it that way, into sinning and not being able to do right.

That is a very good something. I am glad Jesus died for me.

Yes, it says this: "He delivered us from the power of darkness, and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." That is found in a book of the Bible called Colossians in its first chapter.

Is He then a  king in a kingdom ?

Yes He is.

I am  so happy that He is. Is He ever going to come back, for if it was so good He came to die, what about coming to help us live ?

He did that when He was here, but yes, He IS coming back. He did not turn His back on us, or leave it at dying, and coming back from the dead as if to laugh at it, because when God creates, we live, when we sin, we die, but when He rises from the dead and forgives us as the One who bore it all for us (and you have to put your heart in His hands and thank Him for this and be sorry for your sins because it is like Him to do that), then He sends His Spirit.

Did He really do that ?

Yes, we must read the book of Acts together one day.

That would be great. Daddy, I want to do what He says.

Then I will give you some help in working out how to read the Bible.

I can hardly wait now I know what it is all about.

Lord bless you.