An eight-year-old child once wrote to Dr. Seuss whose real name was Theodore Geiss: “Dear Dr. Seuss, you sure thunk up a lot of funny books. You sure thunk up a million funny animals… who thunk you up, Dr. Seuss?”
Brian Upshaw has just re-directed my message for next Monday’s noon luncheon at the North Greenwood (Mississippi) Baptist Church on the subject of “how to love children”. Brian said, “Pastors who think of children as the church of the future instead of the church of TODAY will find themselves preaching to empty buildings.” When I thanked him for that insight, he admitted he heard those words from Andy Stanley earlier this morning in a conference.
Bob Anderson, longtime pastor in our state, once told a seminary audience, “We know Jesus was a happy person because children loved him. Children do not like to be around unhappy people.”
A little boy was playing in the yard when he saw a large Chow dog loping down the street, its heavy hair hanging out from its head. The boy ran into the house and breathlessly told his father he’d just seen a lion. The dad, well acquainted with his child’s tendency toward exaggeration, said, “Son, you had better be telling the truth.” “I am, Dad, I promise,” the little boy insisted.
Dad got up and walked to the window and came back. “Son, there is no lion outside. That’s just a big dog.” Then he said, “Now, I have warned you about telling things that aren’t true. I want you to go to your room and talk to the Lord about what you told me.”
A few minutes later, the boy was back. Dad said, “Did you talk to God about what you said to me?” The child said, “I did, Dad, and the Lord said the first time He saw that dog, He thought it was a lion, too!”
In 1985, while Margaret and I were visiting with friends Jim and Darlene Graham in Atlanta, we entertained ourselves throughout their city in the day while they were at work. One day, we caught the movie “Back to the Future.” I thought it was as good a motion picture as I had ever seen — enjoyable, thought-provoking, and on a certain level, moving. (The subsequent BTTFs were vastly inferior to the first of the series.)
I walked out of the theatre thinking, “What if we could go into the past some 30 years, and
Dr. Joe, a few days ago I went to LuAnne’s. Books were everywhere–on tables, on the couch, on the floor. I asked Jamie why books were scattered around everywhere. He said, “We like books–we like to read.” I did suggest that he put them in the bookcase, but I am so happy both he and Patrick love to read and be read to.