Still More Lessons From Children’s Letters to God

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
 as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. (Psalms 139:13-16, NLT)

Every time I read that little book, it makes me smile and gives me new inspiration. Here is what little Simon wrote:

Dear God,

My name is Simon. That’s from the bible. I am eight and a half. We live across the street from the park. I have a dog name buster. I used to have a hamster but he got out and ran away. I am small for my age. My hobbies are swimming, bowling, my chemistry set, reading, coin collecting and tropical fish. Right now I have three kinds. Well I guess I said a mouthful.

Goodbye, always a friend      

Simon  (No corrections were made to his letter)

I found it very sweet that Simon wanted to give God, his friend, a full description of himself. One thing, though, that he was not aware of is how well God already knows us. He knows EVERYTHING about us. He even knows the number of hairs on our heads. Psalms 139:2-3 tells us that he knows when we sit down and when we rise up and that He is familiar with all our ways.

God knows every possible detail about us, and yet, He still has chosen to love us; so much so that He was willing to allow His Son to die in our place to redeem our lives from destruction and deliver salvation to us! He knows the decisions we will make before we make them and what their outcomes will be.

We have two choices when it comes to understanding how much God knows about us:

1. To be terrified. In this case, we probably don’t have a close enough relationship with Him, so we walk in constant fear of punishment for the things he does wrong.
2. To be delighted. Here, we see God as a loving Father who will always forgive us and get us back on track when we blow it.  That gives us the ability to live our lives in freedom, continually staying in touch with Him for guidance and protection.

I choose number two. God doesn’t want us to live in fear of Him. He wants us to know Him as well as He knows us. He wants a loving relationship with us so that we can go to Him for everything about our lives – nothing hidden.

I love the end of  Simon’s letter where he reminds God that he is God’s friend. When we join the family of God, not only do we become His child, He also calls us friends. John 15:15 tells us, I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father (CSB). In most cases, when we have a close friend, we share everything with him/her. They are whom we are most vulnerable. That’s who God wants to be for us. Let’s take Him at His word and allow Him to be our all in all.

(Children’s Letters to God; compiled by Stuart Hample and Eric Marshall ©1991)