I don’t know if my ds (3rd Grade) is hitting the rhetoric stage early or what to think but he is now asking me questions that I don’t know how to answer. I will give an example. A few weeks ago we were going over Noah's Arc and he was doing his typical "why's" and I told him God destroyed the earth because the people were bad and did bad things. He says to me, “what did the animals do wrong?” I am like HUH? He goes on to say that God saved 2 of each animal but what about the other ones, why did they have to drown in the flood? I kind of sat there stunned for a moment trying to think of some sort of clever reply but I came up with nothing. I finally told him that he saved 2 of each so there would be more animals once they had babies but he had to destroy the earth and not all of those animals would fit in the arc. He was still upset that the innocent animals were killed and wanted to know why God would do something like that. This isn’t the first time he has asked something like this. It’s like he will pick that one thing that there really isn’t any answer for and that’s what he zero’s in to ask his question. How do you handle it when your kids asks questions that there really are no answers for?
This is a good time to teach him that God saved enough of eveyrthing, humans and animals, and we don't know everything that God has planned or how he does things.... I have an invisable list that I add too know and then when questions like this come up... they go on the "things to ask God when we see Him someday" list. Somethings we can pray and ask Him to show us the answer to but some times we just have to wait untill we get there!
"If God were small enough to be understood, He wouldn't be big enough to be worshiped". - Evelyn Underhill That being said, when God gave Adam dominion over the animals, he placed Adam in headship over them. Much like God placed our husbands in headship over us. Or like a king has headship over his subjects. When a king makes a bad decision that causes a famine, all of his people suffer. When our husbands make a financial choice that impacts us negatively, the whole family suffers. That's the natural result. Same with the animals. When men made a lot of bad choices the result was that everything on Earth suffers. Much like today with all of the animals that are going extinct. So the death of those innocent animals was a natural consequence. But God, in His infinite mercy, gave all of us (human and animal alike) a second chance. This opens a great big door to lessons on conservation, natural consequences (in families and in society), mercy, etc. This is a tough lesson for a child to grasp, but it's important for them to realize that God did not kill those animals, man's actions did.
You are a gifted speaker Actressdancer! That was really well spoken. This wasn't my thread, but truly that was an excellent explanation. Very good!! :angel:
WOW! That is totally awesome! I hope you dont mind but I am going to borrow this from you to explain this better to my ds.
Noah and the animals I once asked my uncle, a very religious person, the a similar question, and he told me that Noah and his whole family were on the Arc and not just his wife. I thought is made a lot of sense at the time, and we weren't just some of the animals to be saved.
