Childlike Faith

In a story that moved even seasoned doctors to tears, a young girl named Pari inspired what her neurologist calls a “sort of miracle” after her father suffered a devastating stroke. Shared by Dr. Sudhir Kumar of Apollo Hospitals in India, the story has touched hearts around the world.

When her father was hospitalized, paralyzed and unable to speak, Pari arrived with a cracked, faded pink piggy bank—her most treasured possession—and offered its contents to the doctors. “I have saved a lot of coins in this,” she said, her voice steady despite her tears. “You can use all of them to make Papa speak again.”

Moved by her love, the medical team enrolled her father in an intensive rehabilitation program that included Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT), which uses music and melody to help restore language. Slowly, with the help of Kishore Kumar’s classic Hindi songs—favorites he once sang with his daughter—faint hums gave way to broken words.

Each day, Pari visited the hospital, sitting by his side, reminding him of their cherished game of antakshari, a common Indian parlor game where people sing with and to one another. One song in particular became their bridge through the silence: “Rona kabhi nahi rona, chahe toot jaye khilona” (“Never cry, even if your toy breaks”). Though he couldn’t yet converse, his hums were filled with affection and hope.

Then, three months later, the miracle arrived. Pari walked into the outpatient department—this time with her father beside her. He stood tall, smiling. And then, with clear words and joy in his voice, he said, “Pari, let’s play antakshari.”

It was a moment no one in the room would forget. A father reclaimed from silence. A daughter’s love, translated into healing. For these two, in this moment, their love was the most effective treatment.

Possible Preaching Angle:

God can use the smallest acts of love and faith to bring about mighty healing and restoration.

We may sometimes toss around the expression "faith like a child." Maybe we should ask South Carolina toddler Sutton Whitt what she thinks of that phrase. Sutton's parents put her to bed without saying bedtime prayers with her first. There was a championship football game on, and they were in a bit of a hurry to say goodnight and get back to the TV.

So, what did Sutton do? She said her prayers herself. Sutton's mom told CNN that she and her husband "started hearing noises upstairs," so they turned on the baby monitor to discover Sutton praying and thanking God for all sorts of people: grandparents, parents, Santa Claus. Her prayer closed "with a resounding 'Amen.'" It's a beautiful example of how "to give thanks in all things."

You can watch the video here.

Some people in Eugene, Oregon, might go through the holiday without a meal. That's where some "little hands" are stepping in. More than 75 kids from infants to teens helped prepare meals for those at the Eugene Mission. Kids from “Little Hands Can” chopped, peeled, and cut up Christmas meals for up to 700 men and women at the mission.

The organization teaches children how they can help others no matter their age. Ashley Bohanan, the Executive Director of Little Hands Can says, “It's really powerful to see the kids in action, to see that they're actually are making a big difference. You don't always think about the thing that little hands can do but it's impressive the things that they can do with their little hands."

Editor’s Note: As of early 2022, the Little Hands Can children and their families have completed over 255 community service projects and over 5200 volunteer hours.

The hottest new book in the Lake Hazel branch of the Ada Community Library had a waiting list more than 50 people strong. But it wasn’t just word-of-mouth advertising that propelled the book into must-read territory. It was also its exclusivity. Unlike most mass-produced works on library shelves, The Adventures of Dillon Helbig’s Crismis is one-of-a-kind. And its author Dillon Helbig is eight-years-old.

Dillon made his authorial intent clear when, after writing and illustrating his 81-page creation by hand at home, he snuck it onto a library shelf during a recent visit with his grandmother. After returning home, he admitted the scheme to his mother, who immediately called the library to ask if anyone had seen it.

“It was a sneaky act,” said branch manager Alex Hartman. Dillon himself admitted this, calling his clandestine act “naughty-ish.” Nevertheless, Hartman was impressed, calling the book “far too obviously a special item for us to consider getting rid of it.” Hartman eventually read it to her six-year-old son, who loved it. She said:

Dillon is a confident guy and a generous guy. He wanted to share the story. I don’t think it’s a self-promotion thing. He just genuinely wanted other people to be able to enjoy his story. ... He’s been a lifelong library user, so he knows how books are shared.

The other librarians agreed that it met the criteria for inclusion onto its stacks. So, Hartman got Dillon’s permission to add a barcode to the back of The Adventures of Dillon Helbig’s Crismis, and officially added it to the collection. They also gave Dillon a Best Young Novelist award, which they created specifically for him.

Dillon’s mom said, “His imagination is just constantly going, and he is a very creative little boy. He just comes up with these amazing stories and adventures, and we just kind of follow along.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Just like these librarians encouraged Dillon, we should also encourage the young people we encounter. We can promote their gifts and talents and prepare them to keep on serving others.

Sally-Lloyd Jones, the author of the popular Jesus Storybook Bible for Children, tells the following story about visiting the Museum of Modern Art in New York City:

A few years ago, I overheard someone commenting on a piece of [modern] non-representational art. I think it was a Rothko [a 20th century American abstract painter]. "My child could to that!" someone said. I take that as a compliment.

“My child could do that.” But really, isn't that the point? Artists like Rothko were specifically drawn to children's art. Picasso once said, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”

The power of a child's art is defined by what they can't do--by their lack. They know they can't do it. And as a result, their art is not about showing off skill or expertise. It's coming from somewhere else. It's all heart ... A child is physically not able to master [pencil or paints]. They struggle to depict things--and every line has heart ... The power of the art of a child comes not from their ability or their strength. It comes from their weakness, their not being able, their vulnerability.

A vanilla shake is one of life’s simple pleasures, especially on a hot summer’s day. Did you know that vanilla traces its origin all the way back to a twelve-year-old slave boy living on a tiny island in the Indian Ocean? Vanilla is now the most popular spice in the world, but in 1841 the world produced fewer than two thousand vanilla beans, all in Mexico.

Up until the mid-19th century, vanilla orchids were pollinated exclusively by a particular genus of bee in Mexico. Over the years, as demand rose, attempts were made to industrialize the pollination process, to no avail. Vanilla was stubborn. All of this changed thanks to the ingenuity of that 12-year-old slave named Edmond Albius on a small island, 500 miles east of Madagascar. He was uneducated, yet he managed to solve one of the great botanical mysteries of the nineteenth century.

In 1822 a plantation owner on the island of Reunion was granted some vanilla plants from the French government. Only one of them survived, and nearly two decades later it still hadn't fruited. Without that bee pollinator, no one outside Mexico could get their plants to flower--that is, until Edmond worked his magic.

The owner was walking his plantation with Edmond in 1841 when he discovered, much to his surprise, that his vanilla vine had produced two beans! That’s when Edmond revealed, very matter-of-factly, that he had pollinated them by hand. The disbelieving plantation owner asked for a demonstration, so Edmond gently pinched the pollen-bearing anther and the pollen-receiving stigma between his thumb and index finger.

By 1858 Reunion was exporting two tons of vanilla. By 1867, it was up to twenty tons. And by 1898, it was two hundred tons. And it all traces back to a twelve-year-old boy named Edmond who hand pollinated a single vanilla vine. From that single vine, a billion-dollar industry was created.

Possible Preaching Angles: Hope; Insignificance; Persistence; Patience; Small things; – The least likely person can be used by God to bring about great changes if they use their gifts and opportunities regardless of their circumstances.

A half-century ago, America's dreams were realized in space. The power of US innovation and spirit took the Apollo 11 crew to the moon and back. That mission was possible because of a diverse team of engineers, astronauts, and mathematicians. It was also possible thanks to the help of one 10-year-old boy who was in the right place at the right time.

In 1969, Greg Force lived in Guam with his father, Charles Force. Charles worked as the director of a NASA tracking station that helped connect the capsule with NASA Mission Control for voice communication. After Apollo 11 began its departure from the moon, a problem arose. A bearing had broken in the dish antenna needed to track the ship. Without it, NASA risked losing the ability to communicate with the capsule as it approached Earth.

Scrambling to find a solution, Charles called home, hoping that Greg's child-size dimensions could be of assistance. He asked Greg to come to the tracking station and squeeze his arm through the antenna's access hole and pack grease around the bearing. The 10-year-old rose to the challenge and scampered up the ladder. Greg said, “I would take a big handful of grease—you know, you squish it. It comes out between your fingers, and I stuck them down in there and packed them the best I could.”

Greg succeeded, and a NASA public affairs officer noted his contribution in an announcement: “The bearing was replaced with the assistance of a 10-year-old boy named Greg Force who had arms small enough that he could work through a 2.5 inch diameter hole to pack [the bearing].”

The Apollo 11 moon landing succeeded with the help of a 10-year-old boy and the rest is history.

As is her role as police dispatcher and call-taker, Antonia Bundy answered the call and rendered help where it was needed. But her caller presented an unusual request.

“You had a bad day at school?” she asked the young boy on the line. “Yeah, I just called to tell you that.”

Nine times out of ten, such an admission might be met with a scolding for wasting police resources. But for Bundy, something seemed different enough to take a different tack.

''When he told me he was having a bad day and I asked him what was troubling him he told me that he had homework," Bundy explained in a local TV interview. "And at that point, I was able to determine that it was more of a 'I need help with homework' than an actual emergency."

Fortunately, Bundy was cheerfully up-to-the-task. "I've always been good at math. All the way through high school I enjoyed it. So it was something I was very happy I could help him with." Bundy walked him through an arithmetic problem, calling it a nice break in her busy day.

As it turns out, her decision not to scold the child paid off, as he seemed to be aware that his problem did not qualify as an emergency.

"I'm sorry for calling you,” he said. “But I really needed help."

Bundy’s response?

"You're fine. We're always here to help."

Potential Preaching Angles:

No request is too small for God, and if we are God’s creation, God will take care of us, so let’s have the boldness of children and ask God for what we need.

Humans are surrounded by evidence for God. This may explain why young children in every culture have a concept of God. Psychologist Paul Bloom at Yale University reports that “when children are directly asked about the origin of animals and people, they tend to prefer explanations that involve an intentional creator, even if the adults who raised them do not.” In other words, children tend to hold a concept of God even if their parents are atheists. Psychologist Justin Barrett at Oxford University reports similar findings.

Scientific evidence has shown that “built into the natural development of children’s minds [is] a predisposition to see the natural world as designed and purposeful and that some kind of intelligent being is behind that purpose.” Even if a group of children were put “on an island and they raised themselves,” Barrett adds, “I think they would believe in God.” “It appears that we have to be educated out of the knowledge of God by secular schools and media."

It’s a common assumption that kids today care more about getting than giving. But in an emotional, viral video kids show that while they may love Lego sets and Xbox gaming systems, they love their parents a whole lot more.

In the video, children from low-income backgrounds are presented with a gift for themselves and a gift for their parent. Then they were told they must choose between the two. Video maker Rob Bliss says 80 percent of the kids he interviewed chose to give their parents a gift instead of keeping the toys they were offered.

Aaron Freeman, 9, is shown deliberating between keeping Minecraft Lego sets for himself or jewelry for his mother. It only takes a moment before Aaron knows his answer. “Legos don’t matter,” he says confidently in the video. “Your family matters—not Legos, not toys—your family. So, it’s either family or Legos, and I choose family.”

“These kids really don’t have much,” said Bliss. “One of them told me how they don’t have a Christmas tree because things have been tough financially for his family. Getting the gift he wants for Christmas is likely to be slim. So, to be faced with the gift he always wanted but never got, and still picking the gift for his family instead is amazing.

One parent said, “We were touched by the selflessness displayed by our kids.” These moments reaffirm that even though they are young, they can still drive positive change through acts of kindness and generosity.”

Florence Wisniewski isn't going to let a hurricane sully her good name. The 4-year-old lives in Chicago, far from where Hurricane Florence caused so much devastation. Her mother, Tricia Wisniewski, told WLS-TV that she explained to her daughter what was going on in the Carolinas, and showed her video of the flooding and houses underwater. "She wanted to help," Tricia said.

So Florence, who goes by Flo, helped her mother set up a donation bin on their porch. They took a map of the hurricane's path and covered it with photos of Flo, and then shared the image on Facebook, asking for donations. The family has collected food, diapers, toiletries, and money for people affected by Hurricane Florence, which "speaks volumes of the neighborhood," Tricia said. Flo told WLS-TV it was important for her to give back because "it's right to do, to help people."

Possible Preaching Angles: Example; Childlike faith; Children – This little child is a remarkable example of innocent faith and an unselfish desire to help others. Jesus held such children up as an example when he said, “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

When NASA posted a job opening for a "Planetary Protection Officer," a position responsible for the microbial footprint of humans during interplanetary exploration, word about the "coolest job ever" was picked up and spread widely by the media. Of course, the position has extremely stringent qualifications and demands an expertise in just about every discipline of science possible: physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, and engineering.

However, those requirements didn't stop 9-year-old Jack Davis from submitting a handwritten note to NASA as his application. "I may be nine but I think I would be fit for the job," wrote Jack. "One of the reasons is my sister says I am an alien. Also, I have seen almost all the space movies and alien movies I can see." He then cited his plans to watch Men in Black as further reason why he should get the job. "I am young, so I can learn to think like an alien," he concluded. Although the informal application did not result in a job offer, it did merit a response from NASA's Director of Planetary Science Jim Green, who wrote back: "We are always looking for bright future scientists and engineers to help us, so I hope you will study hard and do well in school. We hope to see you here at NASA one of these days."

Potential Preaching Angles: We may have trouble remembering this, but in his perfect sovereignty God does not need us to accomplish his will. However, through his grace and love for us, he chooses to allow us to help build his Kingdom on Earth-like a parent with a toddler, or NASA with a fourth grader. May we all have childlike faith to pursue his Kingdom eagerly and faithfully.

Sofia Cavaletti is a researcher who has pioneered the study of spirituality in young children. She finds that children often have an amazing perception that far surpasses what they've already been taught. One three-year-old girl, raised in an atheistic family with no church contact at all, no Bible in the home, asked her father, "Where did the world come from?" He answered her in strictly naturalistic, scientific terms. Then he added, "There are some people who say that all this comes from a very powerful being, and they call him God." At this, the little girl started dancing around the room with joy as she said, "I knew what you told me wasn't true—it's him, it's him!"

Similarly, the author Anne Lamott was raised by her dad to be a devout atheist—all the children in her family had to agree to a contract to that effect when they were two or three years old—but she started backsliding into faith at an early age. "Even when I was a child I knew that when I said 'Hello,' someone heard."

In an article in The New York Times Magazine, writer Dana Tierney described how both she and her husband John had rejected their childhood faith. They had their son Luke baptized to placate their families, but that was it. When Dana's husband went to Iraq as an imbedded reporter, she was understandably fearful. But she was surprised at how calm four-year-old Luke was. She assumed that it was just youthful naiveté, until one day when they were watching a TV interview with a U.S. soldier who was sharing his fears about returning to Iraq. For just an instant, Dana saw Luke form his hands to pray. When she asked him about it, Luke at first denied it, but after he did it a second time, he confessed that he had been praying.

Dana was stunned, partly by Luke's faith, and partly by how his faith allowed him to be calm and her lack of faith caused her to be fearful. She was also embarrassed that her four-year son instinctively knew that praying for his dad was socially inappropriate.

When Dana asked Luke when he first began to believe in God, he said, "I don't know. I've always known he exists." Throughout the article Dana never patronizes believers. At one point she described how many of her non-religious friends feel freed from religion as if they've been liberated from superstition. Not Dana. She feels like she is missing out. As Dana explained, "[My religious friends] have an expansiveness of spirit. When they walk along a stream, they don't just see water falling over rocks; the sight fills them with ecstasy. They see a realm of hope beyond this world. I just see a babbling brook. I don't get the message."

Richard Robinson was one of the leading atheist philosophers during the latter part of the twentieth century. He died in 1996, and he knows better now, but in 1964 he published a book called An Atheist's Values, in which he stated: "Christian faith is not merely believing that there is a God. It is believing that there is a God no matter what the evidence may be." "Have faith" in the Christian sense means, "make yourself believe that there is a God without regard to the evidence." In other words, Christian faith has a habit of flouting reason in forming and maintaining faith in God.

Dallas Willard responds to this view of faith:

This reminds me of the definition of faith by Archie Bunker, a character on the 1970s TV show All in the Family: "[Faith is] what you wouldn't believe for all the world if it wasn't in the Bible." Our culture provides terrible teachings like these about the nature of faith, and they get absorbed into our churches. Then they haunt young people (and all of us, really) when they go into other contexts. So we should understand that [the Christian faith] deals with real-life contexts for real-life people and challenges them to be helpful to others who are in doubt and to deal with that doubt honestly, because there is an answer.

Writer Ralph B. Smith once made an observation that children ask roughly 125 questions per day and adults ask about six questions per day, so somewhere between childhood and adulthood, we lose 119 questions per day. A child's innate curiosity about life is instilled in them at birth by the One who longs to be discovered. The more questions they ask, the more they discover about the world around them. The more they discover about the world around them, the more they discover about the One who made them.

Possible Preaching Angle: Disciple; Discipleship; Sanctification—Disciples are called to be lifelong learners about the way of following and knowing Jesus, being conformed to his image.

Even though our churches are only able to be the object of revival rather than its producer, I don't think our waiting is as passive as it seems. Let me illustrate with an image from James K. A. Smith's book Imagining the Kingdom:

I cannot choose to fall asleep. The best I can do is choose to put myself in a posture and rhythm that welcomes sleep. I lie down in bed, on my left side, with my knees drawn up; I close my eyes and breath slowly, putting my plans out of my mind. But the power of my will or consciousness stops there. I want to go to sleep, and I've chosen to climb into bed—but in another sense sleep is not something under my control or at my beckoned call. I call up the visitation of sleep by imitating the breathing and posture of a sleeper … . There is a moment when sleep "comes" settling on this imitation of itself which I have been offering to it, and I succeed in becoming what I was trying to be. Sleep is a gift to be received, not a decision to be made. And yet it is a gift that requires a posture of reception—a kind of active welcome.

We're actually born smiling. 3-D ultrasound technology now shows that developing babies appear to smile even in the womb. After they're born, babies continue to smile (initially mostly in their sleep) and even blind babies smile in response to the sound of the human voice.

An intriguing UC Berkeley 30-year longitudinal study examined the smiles of students in an old yearbook, and measured their well-being and success throughout their lives. By measuring the smiles in the photographs the researchers were able to predict: how fulfilling and long lasting their marriages would be, how highly they would score on standardized tests of well-being and general happiness, and how inspiring they would be to others. The widest smilers consistently ranked highest in all of the above.

Even more surprising was a 2010 Wayne State University research project that examined the baseball cards photos of Major League players in 1952. The study found that the span of a player's smile could actually predict the span of his life! Players who didn't smile in their pictures lived an average of only 72.9 years, while players with beaming smiles lived an average of 79.9 years.

Possible Preaching Angles: Joy—Although smiling doesn't always stem from genuine joy, at times there is certainly a connection between the joy on our face and the joy in our heart.

Actress Sarah Drew, who has appeared on Grey's Anatomy and in the film Mom's Night Out, had this to say about her new role as a mother:

The stay-at-home mom [or any mom] has the terrifying, holy charge of raising up little eternal beings into people who will encounter the world either through kindness and grace, or with malice and indifference. I cannot think of a more important job. And yet, our culture rolls our eyes at these women. Our culture says they've "given up" on doing anything [important] with their lives.

The greatest thing motherhood is teaching me is how to be present … It's very easy for me to get buried in my phone. To check emails and texts and my Twitter feed … When I am not present in my life, I miss out on the beauty that is surrounding me. I forget to be grateful, and instead whine and complain about how things aren't going according to plan. Meanwhile, my son, who is fully present, is busy laughing with glee at the leaves he's chasing and at the game he has invented.

A survey from the U.K. involving 1,000 mothers found that moms may be the most quizzed people on the planet. On average, from breakfast to afternoon tea time (remember this was in the U.K.) the average stay-at-home mom faces one question every two minutes and 36 seconds. That adds up to about 105,120 questions per year.

The questions spike during meal times. Girls aged four are the most curious, asking an incredible 390 questions per day. On the other end of the spectrum, boys aged nine ask the least amount of questions. According to the survey, the moms claimed that these were the top five toughest questions (in order):

Why is water wet? Where does the sky end? What are shadows made of? Why is the sky blue? How do fish breathe under water?