I spent today reflecting on some of the things that I read in the book, Too Small to Ignore by the president and CEO of Compassion International. I will just share an excerpt with you that truly shows the great importance of our role in the lives of children. I hope that you are as challenged as I was after reading it.
“First, we must understand that Satan knows the heart of God. It is Satan’s greatest joy and highest priority to do all in his power to break the heart of Elohim, the creator of heaven and earth. Remember that, as Lucifer, Satan was a witness to the process of creating the world. I can imagine heaven’s one-time chief angel watching with great interest as the Spirit of God hovered over a dark and formless world. He saw the dazzling advent of light. He watched amazed at the creation of land and sea, plants and animals-all the creative work of Jehovah. It frustrated and angered him to see the great joy and satisfaction God was getting from the emergence of this wondrous works of his hands.
Ever watching for and avenue of attack, Satan found it in the moment God fashioned a man in his own image from the dust of the earth and then breathed his own breath into the man’s nostrils. Something about this crowning [art of the Creation moved God deeply with a profound love. Satan saw it and knew he had found an inroad. All he had to do was attack and hopefully destroy mankind. He began his strategy as a serpent in the Garden of Eden, and he has been doing so ever since.
At the moment of birth, all heaven stands in breathless anticipation and breaks into shouts of joy and praise. Each child is born into the world loved and full of potential to bring joy to the heart of God. A little flame flickers deep in the child’s being. It reflects a dignity and worth, made in the image of God Almighty.
Meanwhile Satan and his evil hosts stand ready to pounce and destroy life as quickly and completely as possible, knowing how that will break the heart of God. All of heaven and hell are present and focused on the newborn life-for vastly different reasons. Both have strategic designs for this little one.
Given this frightening warfare between heaven and hell, it is all the more ironic that children are seemingly so unimportant to us adults. While all of heaven stands and cheers whenever a little one is born, and all of hell hurls itself at its destruction, we glibly go about our lives and ministries oblivious of the raging battle or the strategic importance of the children around us day by day. What is to be done?
It begins now, here, and with you! It begins with the very next child God brings across your path. Every child you encounter is a divine appointment, with each one you have the power and opportunity to build the child up or tear the child down.
A life can be launched with as little as a single phrase, an uplifting word, or an act of kindness. The spirit of a little child is a lot like wet cement. When a child is young, it takes little effort to make an impression that can last a lifetime. ..Sadly, the opposite is also true. All it takes is a single unkind word, an isolated act of cruelty or abuse to destroy a life!
Nothing thwarts the effort of Satan to destroy little lives more than a caring adult’s timely intervention to build them up and assure them they are loved. The path of destruction can end with you. You can decide, as I have, that you will be an instrument of grace in the hands of God. Every child that passes me in the grocery line, at church, or at the ballpark I consider a divine appointment, an opportunity to lift that child up-if only for a brief moment. It may just be in the moment that will launch a life or restore one that needs kindness today.”
He also writes, “ Children may not have much to give materially, but they generously give all they have to those they love and believe in: hugs at bedtime that require both arms and legs; full body squeezes amid giggles and laughter that are beyond value; a storm of sloppy kisses on your cheek; a squeeze of your hand that confides, I am afraid, but I trust you; pudgy little fingers folded in a simple, sincere prayer that rises up like perfume to the very heart of God. These things are priceless and more than enough. Few gifts on earth are as wondrous as the love of a child. Advocates for children know deep in their hearts the truth of the saying, ‘You never stand so tall as when you stoop to help a child.”
After reading just the few pages of this book I am moved in a deeper way to love and serve the children in my life. It’s a sobering truth to look at the spiritual warfare that is going on and a call to fight on their behalf. Children are a gift from God and we have been entrusted with them. We need to take our roles seriously and be praying on their behalf. I am both convicted and challenged. Lord help me to serve the children in my life as you would, to love them as you do and do all in my power to protect them and help them to know and love you.
