An interview made the rounds this week that had nothing to do with a movie premiere. The actress Anna Faris, talking about her family, mentioned that her son has been asking her to accept Jesus Christ. Not a pastor. Not a campaign. Not a documentary crew. Her boy, at the kitchen-table level of life, keeps bringing it up.
I do not know that family, and I am not going to pretend to know where the story lands. What caught me is the direction the message was traveling. We usually picture faith moving downhill — from the grown-ups to the kids, from the ones who know the words to the ones still learning them. Here it is running the other way. The shortest person in the house is the one doing the asking.
Jesus Was Not Surprised By This
There is a scene near the end of Matthew's Gospel where the temple is loud with children. Jesus has just turned over the money tables, healed the blind and the lame in the courts, and the kids are shouting Hosanna to the Son of David right there in the middle of it. The officials are furious. Matthew records it plainly:
“But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ they were indignant and said to Him, ‘Do You hear what these are saying?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Yes. Have you never read, “Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have perfected praise”?’” (Matthew 21:15-16)
Do you hear what these are saying? Yes. He hears. And He does not shush them or explain them away or wait for a credentialed adult to say it better. He quotes the Psalms back at the experts and lets the children keep going.
That is a pattern, not an exception. Samuel heard God before Eli did, and Eli was the priest. A boy's five loaves fed a hillside when the grown men had already done the math and concluded it could not be done. The Spirit poured out at Pentecost carried Joel's promise with it: “your sons and your daughters shall prophesy” (Acts 2:17). Sons and daughters. Not eventually. Then.
Children Have Not Yet Learned to Be Careful
Part of why God uses a child's voice so well is that a child has not yet built the machinery of self-protection the rest of us carry around. A seven-year-old who believes Jesus is real and good will simply say so at dinner. He is not calculating how it will land, whether it is the right moment, or what it might cost him socially. He just tells you, because he loves you and he thinks it matters.
Somewhere along the way most of us trade that in. We call the trade wisdom. Sometimes it is. Often it is just fear wearing a nicer coat.
And here is what I watch happening in our church right now: when the Spirit moves, He does not check ages first. Kids pray for people and things happen. A young person will say one sentence in a small group that reframes the whole conversation, and everybody in the circle knows it did not come from them. I have led people long enough to know the difference between a clever remark and a word that lands with weight. The weight is the Holy Spirit, and He is not particular about how tall you are.
If You Are the One Being Asked
Maybe you are on the receiving end of this. A kid in your life keeps bringing up Jesus and you are not sure what to do with it. Do not brush it off as a phase, and do not fake a conversion to make the questions stop. Just take it seriously enough to look into it. God has used stranger front doors.
And if you are the one doing the asking — praying for a parent, a sibling, a spouse who has not come around — hear this carefully. Faithfulness is not the same as fast results. Some of us have prayed for the same person for years with nothing visible to show for it. That is not failure and it is not a sign that God has stopped listening. Monica prayed for Augustine for decades. Keep loving them. Keep asking. Leave the timing where it belongs.
This Sunday morning at 10:30, when we gather for worship, notice the youngest voices in the room. They are usually a half-beat behind the song and about twice as sincere. Jesus said that is what perfected praise sounds like, and He said it to a room full of people who thought they knew better.
The gospel does not require you to be impressive before it reaches you. A child can carry it to a grown woman in her own kitchen. A tired man can carry it home from a Sunday service. Christ has never needed a qualified messenger — only a willing one. And He is still calling, in the plainest voices, to whoever will listen.
Join us this Sunday at 10:30am — Outpouring Worship Center, Ravenna.