My recovery from back surgery has continued to go very well.  And while I did have a little bit of a “heating pad” type of feeling in my mid back last week from my nerves being inflamed a little bit, over all I feel great.  It was the first odd sensation I have had in my back in months.  It was not really pain, just a mild reminder that I had some healing going on back there and I needed to keep things simple.  So, I took it easy for the rest of the week…. mostly.

The past weekend I was cleaning out a trunk in my study and I ran across a book that I used to read with my daughter and my son when they were little.  It is “The Children’s Bible”.  It shares the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark, David and Goliath, Mary and Joseph, Jesus and His disciples and all of the other major stories from God’s word in ways that engage children and are easy for them to understand.  It is full of vibrant pictures to go along with the stories of men and women who faced challenges and obstacles in their lives and who with the help of the Lord were able to overcome all those challenges.

My kids are grown now and have moved out.  My daughter is married to a wonderful man with a daughter of her own who will be two years old in just a few months.  They are awesome parents.  My son is still single and lives in a home that he rents with some other young men and has matured to the point where I have almost stopped biting my nails, no longer wake up in the middle of the night with the cold sweats and hardly ever lift up an “unspoken” prayer request on his behalf in church in anymore… hardly ever.  Both of my kids have turned out well.  Oh sure, we made some trips to school from time to time while they were growing up, some of those trips initiated by us and some by the school, but overall anybody who has met our kids will tell you they have turned out very well.

My wife and I have been truly blessed.  And though we have tried our best to do a good job with our kids, I don’t attribute our success in raising children and not being profiled on the evening news to be due to any knowledge or skill that we possess on our own.  I know that the successes our children are making of their lives come from the lessons and the truths that were learned from the words in that book.  Every night we would read the stories and talk about the situations the characters encountered.  I would try to reinforce the principles found in the story.  When I would ask the kids what they thought we were supposed to learn from the story, if my daughter got stuck for an answer she would always reply, “To be nice?”  And you know, her answer was always at least partially right.

I love that Children’s Bible because it does keep things simple.  Sometimes as adults we try to make things too difficult.  We try to set up elaborate rules and regulations.   We make things too hard and we set ourselves and others up for failure.  We expect everyone else to be like us, think like us and worship like us.  We forget that the Lord makes faith so easy that even a child can come to Him.  Yes, the Lord keeps it pretty simple.  He says to us in His word in Micah 6:8 “He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?”

It really is pretty simple.  The Lord expects us to do the right thing, to walk with Him and to be nice.  It is so simple that even a child can understand it.  What an awesome God we serve.  I can hardly wait until my granddaughter spends the night so I can begin to share those same stories with her.

If you would like to know more about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you can send me an email directly at pastorpstephens@aol.com