Evidence of God

"I can't see!" is a cry we hear frequently from our youngest. She's a petite little thing and often finds herself the shortest person in the room. In a crowd, it's often tough for her to see what everyone else can see. Lucky for her, despite being almost 8 years old, she's still light enough to pick up. Many times, if there's something cool to see, we'll pick her up or find her something to stand on to make her taller so she can see whatever there is to see.

Kids always want to see what's going on. Not being able to see is a source of great frustration for my youngest. She'll do just about anything to be able to see what's going on. Kids are concrete thinkers, which can make it tough for them to grasp the reality of God. Sometimes, we need to lift our kids up so they can "see" God.

We are asking our children to believe in something they can't see, and we have to be careful to help them distinguish God from a fairy tale. It's easy for kids to get confused because we read them stories from all types of books, and then we read them Bible stories, too. We need to be careful to make the distinction between fiction stories and the Bible. From a young age, we want to make sure we're telling our children that all the stories in the Bible are true.

It's hard to understand that God is real when you can't see Him. Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." Without faith, we can't have a relationship with God, and faith can be a big concept for kids to understand. Do your best to make God real to your kids even though they can't see Him.

• Point out the evidence of God. God's creation is all around us. Have your child go out in the yard and find three things that God made. Talk about each thing and point out how amazing it is that He made such a variety of things.
• Help your child think of times when God has helped them. Make a list of times that God has answered prayers or been present in your child's life. Thank God for being real and caring about us.
• Take your kids outside on a windy day. Point out that you can't see the wind with your eyes, but you can see the evidence of it all around you. Talk about how God is like the wind. We can't see Him, but we can see the evidence that He exists all around us.

Be sure to act like God is real in your own life. If you tell your kids to have faith in something they can't see, but then you choose to rely on your own strength and ignore God, your kids won't see any reason to put their faith in God either. Rely on God and put your faith in Him. Remind your children that He is real and we see evidence of Him everywhere. Give your kids a boost, and help them to "see" a God in whom they can put their faith.