Grown–ups and kids—all are children

Erin Swinney

WHO'S better, a child or an adult? I'm a kid, and I sometimes wonder. To myself, I feel important. But it often seems like adults are more important than I am.

It turns out that, to God, children and adults are just as important as each other. God gives His love and His intelligence equally to all of us.

To Him, age doesn't mean anything. He knows us as His perfect children, His image and likeness. Would God be any more important if He were one hundred million years old, or less important if He were only a baby? God is never either of those things. God is always the same—wonderful!

When young people listen to God, they can do things that surprise even adults. When Jesus was only twelve, he and his parents went to Jerusalem (see Luke 2:42–49). When it was time to go, Jesus' parents headed home as part of a large caravan, not know ing that Jesus had stayed behind in Jerusalem. When they realized he wasn't with the caravan, they went back. After three days of searching, they found him sitting with the elders of the church, who were all listening to what he had to say. When Jesus' parents saw him, they were amazed. In today's words, their conversation might have gone something like this:

When young people listen to God, they can do things that surprise even adults.

"Where have you been?" asked his mother. "Your dad and I have been look ing all over for you. We were worried!"

"Why? I'm just doing what God, my heavenly Father, told me to do."

Jesus knew his Father was God, and that God didn't think he had to be grown-up before he could start serving Him. Why did the people in the temple listen to Jesus, who was, in their eyes, only a child? Because children can express God's love and intelligence as well as adults can. God would never withhold or delay His goodness and power from anyone, especially not because of a person's age.

Once I put an advertisement in a local newspaper to let people know that I can baby-sit. I was tempted to say that I was one year older so readers might think I was more capable. Then I remembered that, to God, I al ready had all that I needed to be a perfect baby sitter. I truthfully put my correct age in the ad, and wound up with more business than I needed.

Once when Jesus was teaching, some children approached him (see Mark 10:13–16). Jesus was really nice to them. His disciples asked (in today's words), "Why are you wasting your time with children?"

"Let them come to me," Jesus replied. "You should be like the little children and accept God as easily as they do." And he hugged the kids and told them how great they were to God.

Part of the description of children in Science and Health is "the spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love" (p. 582). That definition has no age requirement. Right now, we are all children—God's children.

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