I will never forget today.  EVER.

Since the day we found out my wife was pregnant with our first child, I have prayed three things for him, and also for his younger brother, our second son.

1.  God, save them while they are young

2.  God, may they walk with You every day of their lives and never pursue anything but You

3.  God, call my boys to preach the gospel

Charie and I take our calling to raise these boys very seriously.  We sing the gospel, talk about the gospel, share the gospel, and attempt to live the gospel daily in front of our boys.  And our boys have a sincere and childlike love for God. 

We have been praying for the right moment when Jacob, our 5 year old (nearly 6), would have an understanding of the gospel; a deep enough grasp to exercise his mind and heart in responding to God’s love.  We have emphasized the reality of his own sin when we talk about Jesus.  We have shared with him the story of the crucifixion of Christ, how bloody and brutal it was, and that it was our sin that caused God to take such drastic measures.  We make a big deal about God’s forgiveness of sin but we preface that by talking about repentance and confession of sin.  Jacob has heard the gospel from us literally hundreds of times, and we have never once “dumbed it down” for him because he was young or little. 

Our philosophy has been simple:  we will not force our children to pray a prayer they don’t understand to a God they are afraid of so they can go to a cool place called Heaven and eat ice cream and fly around with angel wings forever.  Trust me, I have seen altars full of teenagers and college students who “came back” to a faith that was never really their’s in the first place because they raised their hand after a group prayer so they would not be the only kid in the group who failed to pray to Jesus.  We want to fill our boys with so much of God’s truth and love that once they have their “conversion moment” they will rest assured in God’s ability to save them and keep them.  Forever.  We are willing to wait as long as it takes, trusting that they are also on a journey of faith, no matter that they are just 6 and 3 years old, respectively.

For the past month, Jacob has clearly been dealing with a conviction of the Holy Spirit.  His understanding of his own sin is only surpassed by His understanding of Jesus’ love for him on the cross.  I have answered his questions and listened to him talk, but never once have I asked him if he was ready to be saved or pray a prayer.  I wanted him to seek it out, to be hungry for it, to be ready for it.  I wanted it to be his faith, not his daddy’s.

This morning I gave an invitation at the church in Maggie Valley, NC.  The lights were on.  All eyes were open.  There was no music.  Four hundred people in the room all looking around, and thirty people, including many adults, stood to their feet to confess their faith in Christ for salvation. 

And then I looked on the front row.  Right under my nose.  And my son, Jacob, was standing with them.

He was smiling from ear to ear.  I lost it.  I put my arm around him as he went to talk with an older gentleman at the church about what he had just done.  Later the man told me that Jacob fully understood the gospel and wanted to give Jesus full control of his life.  On the way home we talked about salvation, what it meant and how he felt.  My heart raced and my tear ducts went dry.  I called my own father and he wept on the phone for his grandson who had trusted in Christ for his salvation.  I asked Jacob if it felt good to be saved and he said, “Actually, daddy, it feels GREAT.”

But in the back of my mind, a mind conditioned by 21 years of seeing “good kids” get saved after years in the church, I was still hoping it was genuine, that he was old enough, that he understood, that it was not rushed.  Any doubt was quickly removed.

My wife walked into our den about an hour after Jacob and I returned home.  He was drawing a picture.  He had drawn Jesus, hanging on a cross, with blood all over the picture.  And when she saw the picture, she realized that Jacob was crying.  When she asked him what was wrong, this was his reply.

“Mama, I was just thinking about what Jesus did for me on the cross, and how He died for me, and it makes me sad and breaks my heart, because I love Him so much.”

Yep.  I think he got it.  So you pray for my boy, that he would stay close to Jesus in these dark days.  And pray for my other son, JoJo.  He is going to have his defining moment one day, too.  And it really doesn’t matter, I guess, who leads him to Christ.  But I pray that his daddy can have that honor.  That is, if I can handle another day like today.

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