Can kids who are 7 and under listen to Jesus and follow Him?
YES! There is no “Junior Holy Spirit” ! James 4:8 says “draw near to God and he will draw near to you” and this is true for any age!
One summer, when our kids were ages 1, 3, 5, and 7, we did something called the Friday Experiments. It was a faith stretching experience for me and the kids!
I read about a saint who would read the Gospels in the morning, and then go out and do what it said in the afternoon. We came up with our own version. Monday through Thursday, I read stories of Jesus from the a Children’s Bible to the kids and we made notes in our “Jesus Journal”. Then every Friday, I would sit them down in a circle. We would review the stories we had talked about that week, and I would ask them to close their eyes and ask God what we should do that day to be like Jesus! (I never knew what they were going to say! This was a faith step for me as well as them!) But whatever they came up with, we would go do!
Corralling the kids to get them to read through our Jesus Journal and pray was not always easy! First they would fight about who could sit on my lap, then the next thing I knew, one was playing the piano, one was in the bathroom, one was crying, and I was trying to figure out where the fourth one went!
But finally, we would read our journal and pray: “Jesus, show us what we can do to be like you”. They would tell me what they heard, and with a little discussion, we would pick on idea to do that day. (I did have to decline a few ideas, such as turning water into wine and then walking around passing out the wine bottles…) but we did find plenty of ways to be like Jesus!
After reading about Jesus preaching from a boat, we took a boat ride!
After the feeding of the five thousand, we bought groceries and took them to a elderly woman who needed food.
After reading about Jesus walking on water, we took ice cold bottles of water to the lifeguards at the pool!
After reading about Jesus healing the lepers, we invited friends over and acted out the story with a few kids wrapped in toilet paper. Josiah (age 7) was reading the story and kept referring pronouncing lepers, “LEEP-ERS”, which made the toilet-paper wrapped friend then ‘leap’ around the living room! So much fun!
After reading about Jesus washing the disciples feet, we washed each other’s feet.
After reading about the woman searching for the lost coin, we did a treasure hunt in our house and found every coin. It added up to $10, which they chose to give to an orphanage.
It was such a fun way to introduce our littles to listening prayer, and awesome to see how God does speak to us when we ask him! They were so young that they don’t even remember all the details… but I know that it was part of the seed planting in their hearts. And it probably grew my faith most of all! It is a blessing to watch faith grow in our children!
