<get more info from Chris -- include question about Science>

At our Family Fun Day, I spent much of the afternoon doing simple tricks for children.

One of my favourites uses a change bag. The children pretend to tie invisible yellow, red and blue scarves together. Then, when I reach into the bag, the scarves become visible — and they are tied together. After that, the children pretend to untie the invisible scarves. When I reach into the bag again, the scarves are visible, but now they are separate.

The children love it. They know something has happened, even if they cannot explain exactly how.

In the middle of all this, one very bright five-year-old asked me a question:

“Who made God?”

That is not a small question.

I know how I might answer a university student. I might talk about time, creation, cause and effect, and the difference between everything that has a beginning and the God who has no beginning.

But this was not a university student. This was a five-year-old child standing in front of me at a Family Fun Day.

My first thought was something like:

“God made everything we see. God was there before time began. In fact, God made time.”

That is true, but even as I said it in my head, it did not feel simple enough.

What I wanted to say was something more like this:

“That is a really big question. Everything we see had a beginning. You had a beginning. I had a beginning. The trees and animals had a beginning. But God is different. God has always been alive. Nobody made God. God is the one who made everything else.”

Or even more simply:

“Nobody made God. God has always been there, and God made everything.”

That may not satisfy every adult. It may not answer every philosophical objection. But it gives a child one clear idea:

Everything else had a beginning. God did not.

I later learned that this child attends the Ethics class at school rather than Special Religious Education. That made the moment even more striking to me. This was not a child simply repeating something he had been taught in church. He was thinking. He was asking. He was wondering.

I told him I was amazed that he had thought about something so deep. And I encouraged him to keep asking good questions, because good questions can help lead us toward the truth.

I have been thinking about that conversation ever since.

Sometimes we imagine evangelism begins when we explain everything clearly. But often it begins much earlier than that. It begins when we listen. It begins when we take a child’s question seriously. It begins when we honour the curiosity God has placed inside people.

At a Family Fun Day, most conversations begin with ordinary things — children, food, games, face painting, jumping castles, or magic tricks. But sometimes, in the middle of the ordinary, a door opens.

A five-year-old asks, “Who made God?”

And suddenly we are no longer just talking about scarves in a bag.

We are talking about the One who made everything.

Please pray for that child. Pray that he will keep asking good questions. Pray that those questions will lead him not only to ideas about God, but to Jesus himself.

And pray for us, that we will be ready for the surprising moments God gives us — even when they come from a five-year-old standing beside a change bag.

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