The words of our response vary, but the feeling we try to communicate is one of respect and honor for all points of view. It’s not unusual to hear us tell our child, “The name ‘God’ means many different things to many people.” We explain, for some people, there is a single and powerful thing that’s thought of as a father who looks over everything and everyone. There are also other ideas about God and other names like Spirit, Universe, Oneness, etc. We are careful not to imprint our ideas on our children but instead to empower them to think through the concept for themselves – free to develop their own conclusions – even if those conclusions are different from ours as their parents.
What a great question to be asked. I sense it is a new opportunity for you to learn more about God. I encourage you to learn more about what happens. Also you may dispel the Santa Idea. Many people of God, and their stories are many, have encountered suffering and they found strength to endure.
The brilliant Poet and author, Mary Karr documents the journey she went on after son 8 asked Mom can we go to church? she replied “Why?” the child responded: “To see if God is there?”
Her new book is called “Lit”
Enjoy the journey.
Mark
In my research over the years i have found that every long lasting Faith has had a concept of the Indwelling Spirit of God Living inside us shearing this life. Ba, Ka, Chi, are just a few word used to identify this awareness. The Egyptians spoke of the Twin that travels with us after life.
I have always aproached Children with the idea that God live with us and grows as we learn the power we have in choosing better action in dealing with life problems, that This divine Source of all Life want us to become as awesome as IT is, But we must experience life to it’s fullest in order to understand how difficult it can be to make some decisions.
I relate to them how hard it is some time to shear ones toys, but if they do they tend to find that the person they opened there trust to will become a good friend for life. And our relationship with God is much the same way. opening our selvs up to trust in the Prosses of our development to become better persons and discover the best in us as we learn to navigate our way through life.
If there are no challenges we will not have the experiences to know how to grow. There fore Challenges are not Bad moments or difficult time but opportunity’s to grow and seeing as God sees .. that there is always a solution to every thing and some solutions take time.
So in the Facing all challenges one can be comforted that they are not alone in confronting those challenges and that God is inside living though then with us also aiding us, if we allow “Him”, to see maybe the other side of a problem and solve it in a creative way most people would over look.
Having Faith can be a strong tool to seeing one through many tough times.
Blessings and may we all “Stay True to The Journey”
lol After reading what i wrote i see i did not say what God is, as is the question…
I think referring to God as the Parent to all Life and that his/Her Love is so great that He/She has the ultimate expression of Patients, Understanding, Forgiveness, and Unconditional-Love that any Parent could ever have… He/She created us to life such a life that we could learn and grow to become like Him/Her..
To help Co-create a better world and see it as He/She does with grand potential.
The younger our children are, the easier it is to share with them who God or the Creator is. Why? well because they already know by their spiritual feelings, we just get to affirm, or con-firm what they are already experiencing. It gets more difficult as we wait till they get older. In fact it gets so difficult, that it takes sometimes great trama, or an especially difficult personal problem to bring ourselves or our children back into focus with what they/we knew as little children. Who God is, is not an intellectual exercise. It is an experiential exercise. That is why we are told ‘religiously’ that we must pray often. The process of ‘prayer IS a religion product, just as tithing, or confession or ….is. So we must first learn how to clear our minds, or rather put our thoughts to zero (nothing positive and nothing negative), so we can begin the process of ‘experiencing’ our Creator. It isnt prayer, but rather the ‘clearing’ that allows us to get to Him, or Her, or It or ???. Does not matter what you call It, It is all the same inside our Heart. Once the clearing takes place, then prayer, or meditation or riding bareback on a horse, or doing laps in the pool or ??? can be used to connect with God. That my friends in my opinion is what it takes to teach children, or ourselves, or our friends or our spouse about God.