"J-E-S-U-S, Jesus, F-R-E-A-K-S, freaks; Daddy what book is this?"
"That’s a book of short stories."
"Will you read some to me?"
"That book? No, I don’t think so, Rita. That book has a lot of scary stories in it."
"You like scary stories?"
"Well, Rita, these stories are about people who had to suffer because they believed in and chose to obey Jesus."
"Who would make them suffer?"
"Some people that believe differently do not like people who believe in Jesus and they will do mean things to them and their families. They will make life hard for them and try to make them sad so that they will leave Jesus."
"That’s not very nice; to try to make someone’s life hard just for believing in Jesus is just plain mean. I sure wouldn’t do that. Why would anyone want to do that?"
"I know you wouldn’t do that, Rita. There are a lot of reasons that people will bother Christians, but like I said before one of the main reasons is that people often don’t like people who are different than they are. They think that they will try to make them do things that they don’t want to do. Some do mean things because they think that God is on their side and that God wants them to stop people from believing Jesus. They don’t understand that Jesus is God."
"How do the mean people find out who believes in Jesus? Do they ask around? Do they look at who goes to church? Or what?"
"Yes, Rita, they will ask around and they might watch who goes to church then they will bother the ones who believe. Sometimes they will have people pretend that they believe in Jesus just so they can find out who the leaders are and what they are teaching the other people, then they will try to scare the leaders and try to make them stop teaching about Jesus."
"Can’t the believers just pretend that they don’t believe in Jesus when the mean people are around? Then the mean people couldn’t make life hard for them and do mean things to them."
"The real believers would rather have a hard life than say that they do not believe in Jesus. They know that saying that they did not believe in Jesus would be wrong and that it would make Jesus very sad."
"But how do they really know that what they believe is right? What if the people who believe in Jesus are wrong and the mean people are right?"
"Faith."
"Faith?"
"Yes, Rita, faith"
"Maxwell Bloom at church says that faith is knowing something isn’t true, but believing it anyway, and he’s nine."
"Yes I have heard that Max is quite the theologian, but he is way off on this one. Faith is a hard word to describe what it means, even to an adult, but let me try to explain it to you. Faith is knowing something is true and believing it even if you can’t prove it. Faith is believing in and obeying Jesus even if you can’t get rid of every question, big or small, about God or Jesus or the Bible or what He is doing in the world or in your life. Does that make any sense to you?"
"No."
"I didn’t think so, but right now that is the best I can do. I pray that as you listen to people teach you and as you learn to read on your own about Jesus you will learn about faith and obeying and about how following Jesus is really the only way to live your life right. I pray that you will be convinced while you are still young that Jesus is the only One worth following and believing in. My hope is that you will stand strong against mean people who do mean things to you because you believe in Jesus."
"Daddy, can we watch a movie?"
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