Child of God

This morning as I woke up, I was thinking of my 2 granddaughters and what I could say to them, about how they would live their lives proclaiming the one true s God to all. Then I started thinking about my life and I how God has led me. As a baptized child of God, I look at how this applies to my life. I would often say that living my life as God’s child was like a roller coaster ride, so fasten your seatbelts!

When I was in fifth or sixth grade, all I wanted to do was become a Pastor, serving God. As time went on, I graduated the from St. Paul Lutheran School from the eighth grade. I had the opportunity to go to Concordia Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota. Here I began my training to become a Lutheran Pastor. In my second year I went to the Lutheran High School. I was somewhat angry that I couldn’t go back to my previous school, and I told my father how I felt. Little did I know at that time that God had other plans for me. I went back to the Academy for my junior and senior year. Then I went to college. After 2 years I changed from the ministerial program to the teacher training program. My intention was to go to the Seminary after graduating to continue studying for the Lutheran ministry. God had other plans for my life!

After 31 years of teaching in the Lutheran School and Public Schools, my life changed again. This is when I decided to go to the Lutheran Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. After 2 hard years of school, I went to Vicar and then Pastor at Zion Lutheran Church in Louisiana and Our Savior in Mississippi. I often thought to myself that God had led me in the way of proclaiming the Gospel first to his children and then to adults, but I had it wrong. All the time God was leading me to proclaim the one true God to all. Now I am retired but still proclaiming the love of God to all who will hear it.

This whole thought process of thinking about children, especially my two granddaughters, led me to see what the Bible said. Here is some of what I found.

¹⁶ “ ‘Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. Deuteronomy 5:16 ESV.

⁶  Train up a child in the way he should go;

even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6 ESV.

¹⁵   Folly is bound up in the heart of a child,

but the rod of discipline drives it far from him. Proverbs 22:15 ESV.

⁶  For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given;

     and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

and his name shall be called

     Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6 ESV.

⁴ Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:4 ESV.

¹⁵ Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” ¹⁶ And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them. Mark 10:15-16 ESV.

¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹² For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

¹³ So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:11-13 ESV.

For God So Loved the World

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. John 3:16-18 ESV.

Zoe and Ietta consider these Bible verses as you go into high school and college, and all the other children of the Lord as you walk with God proclaiming him to be the one and only true God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.