My eight-year-old daughter attended Vacation
Bible School at CGBC last week, five days in all. She relished the time there, had
fun playing and learning. Kids are impressionable and teachable. But here’s something
I didn’t expect she would pick up:
“Hey, would you believe it, God just
answered my prayer!” Charissa reported out of the blue, sounding rather excited.
We were on the road from Ipoh to Klang. I was driving, Mei Wan was seated next
to me with our little girl at the back.
“What is it?” I asked, wondering what led
to such proclamation.
“He took away the pain in my head,”
Charissa answered.
“You had a headache?”
“Yes, when I woke up from sleep just now, but
it’s now gone. I asked God to take it away and He did what I asked!”
We were more than pleased. Even though we
had taught her about God’s healing before, I reckoned the last few days of VBS must
have reinforced something to that effect. So I probed, “Did they teach you on healing
at the VBS?”
“Yeah, teacher showed us a video of a
pastor praying for people. He prayed for a kid blind in the left eye and then
he could see!”
Teaching kids on healing at VBS! I never
expected this. The church has done a good job.
But after journeying a further half hour,
Charissa said, “Aiya, I think the headache has come back.”
“You can pray again,” said Mei Wan.
So Charissa blurted out, “O God please take
away my pain... heal me please, I don’t want to have this pain. Please, please
quickly do that...I don’t want it... please, please take it away!”
She went on and on, begging God. Not looking
like in much pain, she nevertheless sounded earnest appealing to God. But
as she continued pleading I decided to correct her. “You don’t have to ask God
like that, as if begging Him do something He is not keen doing. No need to talk
to God, talk to the pain, ask it to go away. By His stripe you are healed.”
“Just talk to the pain?” she asked.
“Yes, God has given you the authority,” I
answered.
“Ok, ok daddy. Pain, you go away. Go far,
far away from me....Don’t come near me anymore. I don’t want you, you go to
other people....Stay there, don’t come back....Go to other people, don’t come
to me....”
Hearing this, I looked at my wife and we
both started laughing.
“Why must you send the pain to other
people? You can command the pain to go away, it need not go to other people.
Okay, send it to hell.”
She stopped for a moment, staring at both
of us who couldn’t stop laughing. Then, in a matter-of-fact manner she
commanded, “Go to hell you pain, I don’t want you. Stay there and don’t ever
come back!”
I tried to stop laughing but couldn’t contain
myself. Charissa must have been healed
amidst our laughter.
No wonder Jesus said those who come to him must
be like little children. They had the capacity to simply believe. Our heavenly
Father would be very pleased if we would believe Him simply like our children
believe us. That would bring Him great joy.
On the other hand, as parents we are in the
best position to instil in our children the right belief. They learn not only
from what we taught them, but also what they see what they hear and what they
observe from us.
Coming back to our trip. The next day we
went shopping at KLCC for Christmas presents. We spent almost the whole day
there, so at the car park auto-pay machine I already anticipated a hefty sum.
After I slotted in the ticket, the machine read “RM33.00”. More used to the
RM2.00 that we pay at Kinta City Ipoh, Mei Wan exclaimed, “Wow, so expensive!”
Immediately the little fellow chipped in, “All
because of Najib! Everything is so expensive because of him. He is to be
blamed.”
My wife and I burst out laughing.
