An Interesting Little Walk

An interesting little walking conversation …

The kids and I were talking about Romans 8:1 on a nature walk the other day in relation to how to deal with guilt. After I had said, “So if you are following Jesus and trusting that he has taken away your sin, you don’t need to let those guilty feelings settle in and build up,” Anna asked a really interesting question.

“Papa, but how do you know you’re following Jesus?”

Good question.

So I turned it back on them and asked, “Yea. How do we follow someone who died and rose again and went back to his Father two thousand years ago?”

They thought about it for a little bit and Emily was the first to say, “We have the Holy Spirit.”

So we talked about that for a little while and then I asked how else we could know how to follow Jesus and Anna mentioned the Bible. We talked a little more and then Dietrich suggested the Church. Just before we got home, Emily also said, “Nature!” but we didn’t have time to get into that (though I believe it on several different levels.)

What was really great was that at each point in the conversation, in response to their own ideas and questions, I was able to help them learn something about God’s presence in the world in Christ and the way that presence has continued in such a way that we legitimately call ourselves followers of Jesus in both natural and supernatural ways.