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Have You Heard the Whole Story?

I don't recall the sermon, or even the point of the sermon (which makes me exactly like most people who listen to my sermons), but I remember what happened afterward.

In that particular sermon I had included a story about David, the mighty King David, being a murderer and an adulterer. I came off the stage to my own children, Jacie and Luke, who were in shock. "King David murdered a person!?!"

Yeah, I would have loved to have some extra company over that day for lunch. Sitting over a crock pot of yummy Sunday warmth, while explaining to my kids how David, the man after God’s own heart, had eyes that wandered and had blood on his hands. Can you pass the carrots?

This isn't a rant about how we do children's church, because the Bible is so full of stories, I won't apologize that many stories focus on the positives of God and the people who follow Him. But my kids had somehow slipped by learning of David the lusting murderer.

This happens easily enough with teaching children. We focus on the fuzzy animals that got on Noah’s Ark, while glossing over the mass genocide happening outside in the rain. We talk about how the prophet Daniel got the big lions to play nice, while skipping over the part where the lions crushed the bones of Daniel’s accusers,… and their wives and their children. Yes, and we discuss David, the shepherd-boy who would be king, only giving brief mention to the parts that give movies an R-rating.

More recently my family was, once again, talking about the whole Goliath episode. Guess what else my kids didn't know about...the sword David used to cut off Goliath’s head! Does anyone remember the old SS song? Only a boy named a David, only a little sling...Well, this new info would make for an interesting new verse to be sung by children.

'And one giant sword went in Goliath's throat and David cut off his head...the sword went back and forth and back and forth.....'

You get the idea. (Yeah, we'd have to get a whole new set of felt board characters to tell some of these stories completely.)

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. ~Deuteronomy 6:4-9

That was a mission given to parents. One of the obstacles we have to completing our mission is not telling the whole story. Now, you might want to wait until they are out of diapers to tell them all the gory parts, but I do believe there is a reason we have these kids until they turn 18. 

Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!
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