“This is Joni,” the little child’s father announced, leading his child to our Bible club. “Be good,” he told his little girl before leaving. Something about Joni with her neatly trimmed shoulder length black hair caught my attention as she played ball with the other children.
At last, it was time for the Bible club to begin. Joni and the other children sat down on a tarp as the Christian teenagers began teaching the songs and Bible verse of the day. As Joni participated in the club, doing the motions to the songs, I asked the hostess of the club, “How old is Joni?”
“Oh, Johnny? He’s about four,” the club hostess answered.
“Johnny… Is a boy?” I tried not to sound as surprised as I looked.
The club hostess laughed. “Don’t worry about it; I called him a girl for the first six weeks I knew him, every time I supervised play dates with him and my daughter. Johnny’s parents don’t know God, but they just had a second child, and Johnny’s mother joined a mother’s group at our church. They seem interested in Christianity, but I don’t think they’ve ever been to church before.”
I watched Johnny very carefully after that throughout the rest of the week. He had a short attention span, which is very typical of four-year-olds, but he seemed excited to hear the Bible stories, play the games, and learn the songs that quoted our memory verses. The final day of the Bible club, the club hostess approached me. “Johnny’s mother told me she hears him singing all the songs you’ve taught him that week. You’re sewing seeds!”
Music is just one way that we can worship God, but it can also be an incredible tool in memorizing scripture and writing it on our hearts. Though Johnny wasn’t going home to a bible believing environment he will have those songs with him and the Lord can use that to bring Johnny to Himself in the future.
