That’s the sentence one of our pastors said a couple weeks ago. We were gathered in the living room like normal, almost but not quite stuffed to the gills…and by that, I guess I mean two things: First, the room was full but not overly crowded, and second, it was Italian night but somehow 2/3 of the potluck was dessert.
Finnegan was sitting in Vin’s lap, and Kav and I were on the floor, coloring. The discussion was about how Jesus invited people to the Kingdom – His approach was not the bad-news-called-good-news gaslighting that is sometimes misdelivered. Nor was it the flimsy appeal we hear so often that feels like a discounted ticket to an event you have no interest in, or junk mail promises from political candidates asking you to vote for them…but I repeat myself.
Anyway, when our pastor said, “The gift is free…but it’ll cost you everything,” Finnegan spoke up, which he’s hardly ever done before.
“What sense does that make?!”
Great question, right? We all thought so. How can a gift be free if it costs you anything, much less everything?
Discussion went back and forth. Adult-y concepts were tossed around, like debts, and payments, and real estate deeds, and ownership. This stuff makes sense to us, but they’re not on the grid of most ten-year-olds.
Finally I asked Finn, “What’s your favorite color?”
“Blue,” he said.
“Alright. You have a blue dot, and it represents your whole life. The whole thing – every day, everything you have, your whole being, is this blue dot. It fits right here,” – I held out my hands – “and has a beginning and end. That’s your life.”
“Okay…”
“But Jesus offers us a line that has no end. It’s infinite, goes on forever. He created it and paid everything for it, and you can have it for free – but you have to give Him your blue dot, because you can’t have both. It can only be one or the other.”
“Huh.” Wheels were turning. We’ve been going over this scripture for weeks, months.
You were dead [past tense] through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work [present tense] among those who are disobedient.
All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, doing the will of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else,
but God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ
—by grace you have been saved—
and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
— Ephesians 2:1-7
“So the whole, unending line is free…but it’ll cost you everything. The whole blue dot. This, “ – I held out my hands again, a foot apart – “for this.” Hands flung wide.
“It doesn’t even seem fair,” he laughed, and the rest of us agreed. It’s not fair; it really is the most lopsided deal in the world.
And he gave his dot to Jesus, right there, in front of everyone.
Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.
The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.
Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
— John 5:21-25
Anyone who hears and believes exchanges death for life, their dot for the line.
After Finn prayed, our friend Chris said, “I see this picture of Jesus taking all of our dots to a wall. On the wall is a picture that’s being made of dots in all their different colors, and when someone gives their dot to God, through salvation, God adds it to the picture. Every dot missing represents someone who is still separate from Him.”
We begin inside the dot, stretching and pushing against its sides, unable to do anything but strive against its ungiving, deceptive boundaries. We choose between being the master of our dot or the steward of the line, but we can’t have both.
Jesus doesn’t give up ownership; we do. He is still the master of the line, but in exchanging our puny domain for His, our world expands deep and wide.
God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Those who believe in him are not condemned, but those who do not believe are condemned already because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.
For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.
But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.
— John 3:17-21
That night while putting the boys to bed, we talked for a long time: about dots and lines, mosaics and murals, the Holy Spirit and surrender.
We talked about hearing God’s voice and moving in cooperation with what He says, and the ways we explain this to six- and ten-year-olds really isn’t that different than how we explain it to adults. We invite honestly, without manipulation or apology or junk mail promises, because Jesus doesn’t need gimmicks to justify the offer.
Kids understand as well as we do – maybe better – that it is the best deal in the world for us to trade our entire ownership of this temporary, decaying mess for the free, eternal, light-filled expansion.
“What color is your dot, Kav?” I asked our six-year-old.
He grinned. “Red.”
And before falling asleep, he prayed, and traded his dot for the line, too.
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