Lessons from a child...

About halfway through our Upwards Soccer practice, we take a few minutes for devotion. Sometimes the girls pay attention; sometimes they get a little distracted (birds in the sky, this week a rabbit hopping down the field...you know... it still happens to the best of us...). But this week, they really were listening. The coach was asking them to imagine getting in trouble and being sent to the principal's office. Then, he asked them to think about how they would feel if one of their friends, who did nothing wrong, offered to go instead and take the punishment.

One girl responded: "I don't have any friends who would do that."
Another girl said, "Why would they do that? That would not be fair."

The coach then compared this to what Jesus did when he died for each of us---an analogy most of us have heard many times.

Another girl (with wide eyes): "Wow, Jesus did that for us?"

Ah, for child-like awe and faith...