With events like the ones we have seen in our country over the last two months, covered 24-hours-a-day by multiple news channels, children are going to ask such questions. The suggestion here is to remember to be truthful and give enough information to satisfy their curiosity. Beyond that, confidently go on with daily activities as you always have. If you do, you'll be doing the very thing our President has said is needed to fight terrorism: go on with life as usual.

I was one month shy of 12-years-old in October of 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis. At that tender age I knew next to nothing about world events. I do recall however, the fearful talk of world war that I heard from the adults around me. I remember the fuzzy pictures of Nikita Khrushchev speaking angry words on the black and white television in our living room and the equally powerful words from then President John F. Kennedy. Our news choices were simple back then. There was the Huntley-Brinkly Report on one channel and, if my dad got up on the roof and changed the direction of the antenna, a very snowy Walter Cronkite on the other. I recall that some people were building fallout shelters in their back yards and stocking them with food to last several years. There was talk about surviving radioactive fallout. I remember having nightmares of airplanes dropping bombs on our house and recall always waking up just before the bombs struck. I remember the civil defense drills where we were to "duck and cover" under our desks at school when the sirens went off. (What good that would do in a nuclear attack escapes me.) I recall wondering if I would make it back home on the bus when school let out if war started. Sensing the fear that was building around me I recall asking my parents whether there was going to be a nuclear war and if we were all going to be killed. I also remember asking why we weren't building a fallout shelter in our own back yard.

I don't remember today exactly what my parents told me when I asked them these questions. I just remember being afraid. It wasn't until years later that I learned what actually happened during that time of world crisis. Historians have since said we were on the brink of nuclear war.

Today, in the wake of the September 11^th attack on America, I find myself concerned about how my grandchildren are dealing with what is happening around them. They're all younger than I was in 1962 - perhaps young enough to be mostly protected from fear by their lack of understanding. Yet I know that they've seen the pictures of the collapsing world trade towers and have heard that our nation is at war. The older ones are sharp enough to have heard the word "Anthrax" and surely know the name, Usama bin Laden.

What should we tell our children (and grandchildren) in the wake of the terrorist attack on America? How can we help them with their fears? How far should we go in explaining tragedy and terror? I want to address these issues in the best way I can in this message. Even if you don't have any children or grandchildren, or at least don't have any of them close by, you can benefit from consideration of this topic because there are children all around us and we never know when we'll have the opportunity to help one of them.

I put my stock in this Book of Life that we call the Bible when I need answers. It is the very Word of God from the mind of God, given to guide us. According to 2 Peter 1:3, it contains "all things pertaining to life and godliness." Naturally then, when faced with difficult questions of important magnitude, I will always go first to try to find answers within its pages.

Accordingly, when I posed the question, "What does God want us to say to our children during difficult times in our history?" a couple of passages came to mind. We'll take a look at several of them this morning, focusing primarily on Joshua chapter 4.

We'll look specifically at Joshua 4:19-24. First though, while you're locating those verses, let me first give you a bit of the context.

In the early verses of Joshua chapter 3 Israel is encamped on the shore of the Jordan River. The period of "Wilderness Wanderings" is over. Time for the conquest of the land of Canaan has arrived. Moses is dead and a new leader, Joshua, will guide the people into the Promised Land. After camping there beside the Jordan for three days, Joshua gives instructions about the crossing: Watch for the priests to go forth carrying the ark of the covenant into the flooded river, then follow them, getting no closer than 2000 cubits to the ark (approximately 1000 yards). Thus the priests went forth into the flooded river carrying the ark. When their feet touched the water, the flow stopped some distance upstream, allowing them to cross over as they had already done through the Red Sea. Once the people were safely across, twelve men specially chosen beforehand, one man from each tribe, went back and lifted twelve large stones from the middle of the river and carried them to Gilgal, the nearest city on the eastern shore. There the stones were stacked up as a memorial of their crossing for future generations. That's where we'll pick up our text.

(Read Joshua 4:19-24)

These verses tell how God wanted Israel to deal with their children and the significant events of their history. But what do these verses, which describe and incident that happened to ancient Israel 3500 years ago, have to do with us? The Apostle Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 10:11, "Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come."

God has preserved the accounts of these things for our instruction. They provide examples of how He works and how we are to handle difficult things. Immediately evident from this passage is the truth that God wanted the children of that day to know and understand the events of their history. He didn't want generations that came after to forget His dealings with them. His instruction therefore, was not to put them into a bubble of protective ignorance in which they were so insulated from reality that they had no concept of where they came from and thus would not understand where they were going. Neither did He want them to ignore their religious history. He wanted them exposed to the truth of their heritage and to the realities of life.

With that in mind, let me suggest three things from this passage that can help guide us in dealing with our own children. First, in dealing with our children on difficult issues, we should carefully consider:

1. The Timing.

As we were raising our kids, I remember wrestling again and again with the question of timing. When should I tell them this or that? How old should they be, for instance, before I begin to relate to them the facts of life including everything from "the birds and the bees" to the serious (and even frightening) realities of heaven and hell?

As you may already know, the Bible does not contain a developmental chart that says that at such and such an age you should tell them this and then two years later you should tell them that. But our text does address the timing issue. It says to tell them when they ask.(1) Look again at verse 21:

And he said to the sons of Israel, "When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, 'What are these stones?' then you shall inform your children, saying,' Israel crossed this Jordan on dry ground.'"

When is it right to tell children truths about life? This text suggests to do it when they ask.

There is a natural curiosity in children. When they see something that is out of place or that challenges what they already understand, if they have a relationship with a parent that allows questions, they will ask. In the case of our text, the children come upon this odd looking pile of smooth river stones at a spot that is unnatural and ask, "What are these? How did they get here? Obviously they don't belong here, so where did they come from?" And the parent proceeds to take advantage of the "teaching moment." "Those were put there by our ancestors to remind us of the time they walked across the flooding Jordan River on dry ground." From there, the story is told, perhaps even going all the way back to times of terror in the life of Israel in Egyptian slavery. (Israel did have terror in their lives, even back then, in the series of Pharaohs who oppressed them.)

Actually, the same timing element of when they ask is seen elsewhere in the Old Testament writings. In relation to telling their children about the Passover, we find similar instructions given to Israel in Exodus 12:26-27:

And it will come about when your children will say to you, 'What does this rite mean to you?' that you shall say,' It is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord who passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians, but spared our homes.'

Notice again the idea: When they ask, tell them what it means.

Here's another example. With regard to the ceremonial practice of redemption of the firstborn child in each Jewish family under the Law of Moses, we read in Exodus 13:14:

And it shall be when your son asks you in time to come, saying, 'What is this?' then you shall say to him, 'With a powerful hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery.

And again, this time in Deuteronomy 6:20-21, regarding teaching the need to obey God's commandments, when the child asks why, tell him. We read in those verses:

When your son asks you in time to come, saying, "What do the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments mean which the Lord our God commanded you?" then you shall say to your son, "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt; and the Lord brought us from Egypt with a mighty hand."

While I'm not suggesting that there should never be any proactive teaching of our children in our homes, the Bible does indicate that we shouldn't shrink from answering the difficult questions when our children ask. Their questions will indicate their maturity level far better than their chronological age. When it comes to difficult things like the attack on America, don't ignore or avoid their questions. In time, they will ask and that is the time to explain. Secondly, our texts suggests that we should tell:

2. The Truth.

3. The Training.

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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