Trying to Answer Naomi’s Questions About God

After hearing the story of how David cut off a piece of Saul’s clothes in the cave, instead of hurting or killing him when Saul was chasing David to try and hurt and kill him. I told Naomi that David was nice to Saul even when Saul wasn’t nice to him, and that’s what God wants us to do when people aren’t nice to us.

Naomi: Why does God want us to be nice to people who aren’t nice to us?
Daddy: Because God is nice to people who aren’t nice to Him, and He wants us to be like Him.
Naomi: David wouldn’t know that if God wasn’t born yet.
Daddy: Well, God was never born. He’s the only one who was never born.
Naomi: He wasn’t?
Daddy: No, He’s always been here. (Naomi is confused.) Isn’t that good? We wouldn’t want to be here if God wasn’t here yet.
Naomi: But I thought Jesus was born?
Daddy: Well, you’re right about that. Jesus is God’s Son, just like you’re my child. And He was born. But God the Father has always lived in heaven. Jesus is God the Son.
Naomi: They’re both God??
Daddy: (oh, dear…how to explain this) Yes. God the Father and God the Son.
Naomi: How can they both be God?
Daddy: It like you’re a person and I’m a person. Both of us are. I’m your daddy and you’re my child. Both of us are persons. Jesus and God the Father are both God.
Naomi: (pause) Why is he called “God the Father”?
Daddy: Because He’s our Father or Daddy in heaven–just like I’m your father or daddy on earth. He created us.
Naomi: Yes. But why can’t we see Him?
Daddy: Because He’s in heaven. That’s why we call him our Father/Daddy in heaven.
Naomi: Where is heaven?
Daddy: That’s where God lives.
Naomi: And that’s where people go when they die, right?
Daddy: Yes, if you followed God.
Naomi: (long pause) What if you don’t follow God?
Daddy: Then you won’t go to heaven.
Naomi: You don’t? Where do you go?
Daddy: (pause–should I go there?) It’s a place called Hell.
Naomi: (long pause again) What’s that?
Daddy: It’s a place far away from God.
Naomi: We don’t want to be far away from God. We want to be close to God.
Daddy: That’s right.
Naomi: When we don’t follow God, we ask for forgiveness, right?
Daddy: That’s right.
Naomi: So if we don’t follow God, we need to ask forgiveness so that we won’t go to that place far away from God.
Daddy: (great–now she thinks that she needs to ask forgiveness every time she sins, or she’ll go to hell…just great) Yes. But when we ask for forgiveness, God forgives us for everything–so we don’t have to worry about going far away from God anymore. Even if we don’t follow God tomorrow, He has already forgiven us.
Naomi: Shouldn’t we ask God to forgive us right now?
Daddy: That would be a great idea.

(We pray to ask God to forgive us and to help us follow Him. We thank Him for loving us and forgiving us. SIDE NOTE: Naomi’s prayer was so sincere–she had her hands clasped, her eyes closed, and she was deliberately, seriously repeating everything I said. In short, she was honest and determined to talk to God. Hard to explain unless you were there.)

Naomi: Do we have to pray for forgiveness out loud to pray to God? Can I do it in my head?
Daddy: Yes, you can pray in your head. You don’t have to talk out loud, because God knows it when you pray in your head. He hears our thoughts too.
Naomi: He does? How does He do that?
Daddy: Well, God knows everything.
Naomi: How does God know everything?
Daddy: Because He’s God. God knows everything; we only know some things–but God knows everything.
Naomi: Yes, just like I know some things that you are thinking.
Daddy: You do??
Naomi: Yes, like when you’re mixing the sugar together, I know that you want to put the butter in next.  And I ask you, and you say that I’m right!
Daddy: (relieved) That’s right. We don’t know everything, but we know some things.
Naomi: How do we know that God wants us to ask forgiveness?
Daddy: Because God tells us in the Bible.
Naomi: He does?
Daddy: Yes, when Jesus lived on the earth, he taught us how to live our lives. And the people who listened to Jesus wrote down what he taught in a book. And now everyone can read it.
Naomi: How can everyone read it?
Daddy: Because after that one person wrote down what Jesus said, other people copied it in their own books. And more and more people copied it until everyone now can read it in their own book.
Naomi: But not everyone knows about God, right? So we have to tell them.
Daddy: That’s right.
Naomi: How can we tell everyone? (pause) I have an idea–we can write a card to someone that tells them about God. And then they can write a card to someone else until everyone knows.
Daddy: I think that’s a great idea.

I think I could have explained things a lot better than I did…I feel like I just confused the poor child, but I also realized that she understands things more than I give her credit for. I realized that she has lots of questions, and that she is ready to learn about things that I’m not quite sure how to explain in a way she can understand. I feel I may have gone too far in some things, but that in time, she’ll come to understand better.

Lastly, I walked away from that conversation realizing that we talked about heaven, hell, God’s eternal existence, the trinity, prayer, God’s omniscience, the Bible, forgiveness, salvation, faith, evangelism…all in one 10-minute conversation or so. And we prayed to be forgiven of our sins in that time period as well. Even though it was very elementary, it was more spiritual/deep/real than what we typically do or talk about at church. Jesus was right about having the faith of a little child. Why can’t church be more like last night? (Minus all my blunders, I would hope.)