A Two-Year-Old's Thoughts About God

"We need to make more snow" Hunter says as he observes the devastation of the last two days of mid-40-degree weather.

"God made the snow, Hunter. We should ask him to make some more."

Promptly, Hunter sticks his head out the window, tilts it towards the sky and shouts "GOD! God! God?" Pause.

"What did he say?" I ask inquisitively.

His answer caught me by surprise, as he turned to me and with a smile whispered, "I love you."

"I love you"? I had thought we were asking him to make more snow. But his unexpected reply surprised me because, I had never sat down and taught him the classic preschool lesson, "God loves me" nor had he heard it from Sunday School (he doesn't go).

This is not to say that he has never been exposed to someone talking about the love of God. Our bedtime prayers routinely involve the remark, "Thank you that you love us and take care of us..." His [favorite] book about Daniel ends with the words, "And the God who cares for Daniel will surely care for you." [Yes, I have it memorized]

But never can I remember sitting him down and explaining to him that God loves him. Perhaps I should be embarrassed, but perhaps not. He came up with his reply based on two and a half years of observations and conversations of who and what God is. And I do believe that such lessons are the most lasting. After all, when it comes to views about God especially, more is caught than taught.

“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.”

1 John 4:16

Hunter is 2 years, 10 months old