Suggested Reading: Psalm 116 and Matthew 18:1-10
Whenever I invite people to read through the Bible in a year, I’m prepared for mixed responses. Some have no interest. Some are intimidated by the commitment of a year. Some have tried and didn’t finish, so they’re hesitant to try again.
I pray for all three groups and continue loving them, because I trust God’s plan and pace are perfect. I plan to keep inviting the first group. I encourage the second group to consider how small a commitment of 15-30 minutes a day is, especially when considering how much time we spend doing other things that don’t have the power to change our lives for the better. And I remind the third group that not finishing still means they started and read more of God’s whole story than the year before.
This year, however, as God has me prayerfully seeking to grow in my childlike faith, I would like to share a story about a child who has studied Scripture and read through the Bible multiple times in his life.
In 2002, my six-year-old son Xavier started studying the Bible with me. He was a pro at memorizing Scripture. When my words, actions, or attitude were not in alignment with God’s Word, he would quote a Bible verse and say, “In your face, Mom!”
I couldn’t get mad because he learned that tactic from me.
When we had a decision to make, a conflict to resolve, or a behavior to adjust, I would quote the God-breathed words of Scripture. More importantly, I equipped my son to prayerfully search for answers in the Scriptures.
He first read through the Bible in a year with us at the age of ten.
Praying before and while reading Scripture for deeper study and for familiarity opens our line of communication with God.
As we grow in the knowledge of God, we grow closer to Him and each other. Deepening intimacy makes it possible for us to respond to God with questions, tears, praises, prayers, and sometimes with a chuckle when the Holy Spirit lovingly uses Bible verses to create those “In-Your-Face!” moments.
This year, using Tyndale’s NLT Go Bible for Kids with the Our Daily Bread daily devotions and Bible in a Year reading plan, I’m asking God to help me live with childlike faith.
Childlike faith is not based on living from a place of naivety. Rather, having childlike faith means to engage with God through prayerful exploration of the Scriptures with wonder and curiosity.
As we grow in childlike faith, God increases our willingness to submit to His authority in every aspect of life with repentance as we turn from our sins and reverence that leads to trusting His unchanging character as revealed through the unerring words of Scripture.
The writer of Psalm 116 reflected this depth of intimacy in a beautiful song of thanksgiving.
Beginning with a declaration of his intimate communion with God, he wrote: “I love the LORD because he hears my voice and my prayer for mercy. Because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath” (vv. 1-2).
We cannot gain this level of intimacy with God by simply obtaining knowledge of God. Rather, as we experience God at work through the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells in all believers, we participate in an ongoing and growing relationship with Him and His people.
God draws us nearer to Him and reveals Himself to us personally, leading to our salvation and the lifelong process of sanctification, which are foundational to living with childlike faith.
The psalmist wrote of God’s salvation and ever-present love working in and through the lives of His people.
He wrote: “The LORD protects those of childlike faith; I was facing death, and he saved me. Let my soul be at rest again, for the LORD has been good to me. He has saved me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. And so I walk in the LORD’s presence as I live here on earth” (Psalm 116:6-9, NLT).
The psalmist also declared his willingness to live for God in verse 14: “I will keep my promises to the LORD in the presence of all his people.”
These are relational statements that demonstrate an ongoing walk with God as an individual and within a community.
Hundreds of years later, as Jesus prepared to fulfill the prophecies of the Old Testament, His disciples asked who was the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Instead of giving them a recipe for greatness according to worldly standards, Jesus pointed to an intimate relationship with Himself that required them to have childlike faith.
“Jesus called a little child over and said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 18:1-4).
Childlike faith embraces the need to repent of our sins and show reverence to our ever-present God through our moment-by-moment Spirit-empowered surrender.
As we enter 2025 and until Jesus calls us home or comes again, I pray we will join the psalmist in singing with grateful praises:
“O LORD, I am your servant, born into your household; you have freed me from my chains. I will offer you a sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the LORD. I will fulfill my vows to the LORD in the presence of his people ̶ in the house of the LORD in the heart of Jerusalem. Praise the LORD!” (vv. 16-19).
Whether we’re reading the Old Testament or the New Testament, everything points to Jesus. He is the life-changing power who enables us to live with childlike faith!
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.” (Hebrews 12:1-2, NLT)
I look forward to growing with you!
Will you read the Bible in a Year with me in 2025?
On January 21, 2025, people across the nation will be celebrating the National Day of Racial Healing. I want to participate by empowering every boy and girl that God made in His image with biblical truth.
When you pray with me and give copies of my picture books to the children God has entrusted you to love, you can encourage them to celebrate multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multi-generational communities that include people with and without disabilities. The main character in all my books is a child with a service dog, inspired by my service dog Callie.
You can use my books to teach that race is a social construct designed to divide and oppress God’s image-bearers. In the Bible, God acknowledges differences in ethnicities but never shows favoritism by the color of one’s skin like the world insists on doing.
My multi-ethnic and multi-cultural family reflects the beauty of belonging and has inspired my writing.
In 2001, after an older student called my son a racial slur in kindergarten, I wrote Different Like Me to help me process the incident as a new believer in Jesus. As I prayed, God blessed me with the words to celebrate our differences and sameness as God’s beautifully diverse image-bearers. Almost fifteen years later, God led me to share the manuscript with my agent. Three years later, the gifted artist, Bonnie Lui, said my words guided her to create the joyful illustrations that started my adventure into the world of picture books. In 2020, Our Daily Bread published Different Like Me, which was a 2021 ECPA Christian Book Award Finalist. God blessed me with the Spanish translation, Diferente como yo, in 2022.
In 2018, I wrote What Color is God’s Love? with the intention of revealing God’s unchanging character through His colorful creations, including His image-bearers. I worked closely with my talented illustrator, Darshika Varma, whose vibrant illustrations present a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multi-generational community of people with and without disabilities working, playing, and serving God together. What Color is God’s Love? was released by WaterBrook Kids in March 2024.
Publishers Weekly said the book reveals “the full spectrum of God’s character” through the colors He designed! Even colors that are often neglected or seen as dull or negative, like black, gray, and brown, are celebrated, shown in a positive light, and used to share biblical truth. Please download the FREE What Color is God’s Love? Breath Prayer Cards, which include the Bible verse and a short prayer God used to help me build the truth statements I shared on each color spread.
I wrote Wonderfully, Marvelously Brown in 2019 to affirm one of my granddaughters after a classmate said she couldn’t belong to our family because she had a darker complexion than her siblings. In October 2024, WaterBrook Kids released Wonderfully, Marvelously Brown. The rich illustrations by award-winning illustrator Sara Palacios on each page combat the lies that feed colorism, racism, and the tendency to pretend we are colorblind. Based on the fact that God created melanin, which is brown, to design the perfect skin tone for every single one of His image-bearers. From the darkest ebony to the lightest ivory, we are all wonderfully, marvelously brown!
My picture books include Bookend Bible verses and are built on the unshakeable foundation of God’s unerring and unchanging truth. Each one creatively acknowledges that God shows no favoritism or prejudice as He loves every image-bearer He created in love and empowers us to love one another. To God be the glory, the honor, and the praise!
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