When Jesus Visits

Our daughter, Rebecca, came to me one morning about a week or two ago.  We were in the middle of getting ready for our day.

"Dad, did you know that Jesus came into my room last night?"

Record scratch.  THAT'S not the conversation I was expecting right now.

Calmly and matter-of-factly I replied, "No, I didn't."

"Tell me about it."

"Well, he came over to my bed before I fell asleep and he told me, 'Rebecca I know you love your daddy, and I know you need me to heal him, and I am going to heal him."

"Rebecca, I love that!  That's so special.  Isn't Jesus really really good?"

"Yeah."

And then she continued on with her morning, probably playing with her sister or something, leaving me to marvel at our daughter's very own relationship with Jesus, who knows her heart and cares about the things that really matter to her.

A little while later, Corrie came to me and asked if Rebecca had told me about Jesus' visit.  Apparently, Rebecca shared a little more information with her.  Corrie asked her what Jesus looked like, and she said that his body was like stone but covered with jewels.

(Side note: as I was asking Rebecca about it again, I asked, "So his body was covered with gems, huh?" "No, Daddy.  Not gems...jewels.")   :)

Corrie asked her what his face looked like, and she said that it looked like the pictures of Jesus in her storybook Bible, but that it was hard to see really well because he was too shiny.

The way I see it, we basically have two options at this point. We believe her. Or we don't. And here's my question: Why is it so easy to NOT believe her?

Eh, she's just a kid.  Kids say all kinds of things and have a propensity for pretending and making things up.  She was probably just imagining, but definitely not experiencing something real.

It'd be easy to simply write it off both in my mind and hers. "Now, Rebecca. Did Jesus REALLY visit you last night? Are you sure you weren't just imagining him? Are you sure you weren't asleep?"

There there. Why don't you let the adults handle appearances of Jesus?

To be brutally honest, I think that Jesus' appearing to Rebecca presents a very pivotal and potentially dangerous opportunity for both her and us, her parents. We have the opportunity, right now, to either foster and protect her childlike heart, her faith OR to pull that seed right out of its soil, fostering doubt in the name of wisdom.

I want to be very careful here, because the way that SEEMS right--the way that feels like having a cool head, a sound mind, wisdom--actually goes against the heart of Jesus.

Luke 18:16-17  But Jesus called them to him, saying, "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it."

When the children ran to him, his presence, his appearance, Jesus didn't rebuke them. He rebuked the adults standing by who were (probably with the best of intentions) quenching the children's innocence and faith. And he didn't say, "To such, who have been tempered by the reason of loving adults, belongs the kingdom of God." He just said to the kids, pure, innocent, and ready to believe. These have the kingdom! So we adults should take some lessons from them!

Then there's this story from Matthew:

Matthew 21:15-16  But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" they were indignant, and they said to him, "Do you hear what these are saying?" And Jesus said to them, "Yes; have you never read, 'Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise'?"

It's interesting that it's the Pharisees--the quintessential Bad Guys of the Bible, the ones you DON'T want to be--who question the children in the verse in Matthew. "Hey Jesus, don't you hear what these kids are saying?! They're worshiping you and calling you the Son of David! Clearly, they don't know what they're talking about. That's not who you are."

But Jesus' reply shows that God himself put that revelation in the children. They were testifying to EXACTLY who Jesus was.

So when we hear our five year old daughter tell us that Jesus showed up in her room and spoke to her about healing me and appeared shiny and like stone with jewels all over him...we're going to believe her. And not just that she thinks she saw him. We believe she actually saw him.

John 14:21  "And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."