In Celebration of Children

Children's day is usually celebrated on 1 Oct for Primary school kids.  It is a day set aside for children to enjoy and have fun.  It is a day also for parents to rejoice in the gift of the LORD.  The Bible tells us that children are a gift from the LORD (Ps 127:3).  Let me suggest three ways we can celebrate as we look at our young child(ren).

Children's Innocence
Very young children are innocent and impressionable.  They are not self-conscious of themselves and would do things that adults find adorable and cute.  They could be easily influenced either for good or bad by adults in their lives.  The Scripture tells us in evil we ought to be like babes (1 Cor 14:20), which means we ought to have the purity of children when evil thoughts and deeds have yet to be formed in them.  Woe betide those who seek to harm innocent children for their own ends.  Jesus held up children for their humility and simple faith, giving a stern warning against those who would stumble them (Mt 18:3-6).  The kingdom of God belongs to such as these (Mt 19:14).

Children's Intelligence
Children can learn things very fast as their brain connections are not so wired up as yet.  This means that if you want to teach them languages, you have to start early.  As they grow older, it becomes harder and whatever they have learnt would take precedence.   Some family bring up their children by getting different members to speak to the children in a different language.  Because children have a voracious appetite for knowledge, one way to help them is to bring them to the library (or buy books), but after they've learnt phonetics and able to read on their own.  Otherwise, you can read to them and interests them with fascinating stories from the Bible or children's books.  Given the proper environment, children can grow up in wisdom, stature and in favor with God and men (Lk 2:52).

Children's Interjections
It's always a joy to listen to babies or young children laugh or giggle.   We remember when our daughter was a few years of age, she used to laugh hilariously at a particular portion of a Barney video.  That makes us happy as well.  Nothing like also seeing them singing praise songs to God and shouting Bible verses out loud.  Likewise when our heavenly Father sees us praising and worshipping Him, He takes great delight in us.  In Zeph 3:17 the prophet declares, "The Lord your God is with you; the mighty One will save you.
He will rejoice over you. You will rest in his love; he will sing and be joyful about you."  God will dance and twirl with us in great delight. 

May we continue to celebrate our children's innocence, intelligence and interjections. And learn from them!