When I lost my oldest son at the age of seventeen in a car accident, I was in Denver, Colorado. I had several hours to think about what I was flying back to having been told that he was life-flighted to the hospital and would probably not survive. Somewhere on the flight back home I heard in my spirit that, "God loves your son even more than you do."
Intellectually I already knew that but now I really KNEW it (in my being).
I don't know why it took me so long to realize that the church had been indoctrinating our children in a culture of fear. There are so many gruesome stories in the Old Testament about God telling the Israelites to kill every man, woman, and child: even being as graphic as saying to bash the heads of the children against a rock.
The law told parents that they should kill disobedient children.
David evidently wasn't supposed to take a census thus God punished DAVID by KILLING some 70,000 of his citizens. The stories are amazing, unfathomable, illogical, and in the end cannot just give children nightmares, but cause them to FEAR God! Of course those who literally interpret the Bible say that FEARING God is a good thing: reverence maybe, but not that kind of fear.
Children need to see and feel church as a SAFE PLACE.
Children need to see God as Jesus described Him to us: Abba Father, a God of unconditional love. God is a father who in spite of what we do, no matter how far we run away, can be seen waiting for our return to our senses, and home. Can you say prodigal son paradigm? God loves everyone, but the impressionable and innocent children need to know that more than anyone.
In essence, be careful how you interpret and pass on many of the metaphorical Bible stories about God!
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