Our church has charged all parents of young children to read a Bible story each day to our children so reading from my son Noah’s children’s Bible has become a part of our regular bedtime routine. Sometimes I try to hit stories that relate to the current holiday in the Christian calendar and other times we simply pick stories that look interesting to him (there are pictures to help with the choice). There are also stories that he considers to be favorites–Noah and the Ark of course, Zacchaeus (because he loves the song), and Jonah.
I have been very happy with his eager responsiveness to the stories and to reading them. He will even pull out his children’s Bible to share the stories with his stuffed animals–or at least some version that he remembers or can guess from the pictures.
One day when he related the story of Jonah to Fred the green rabbit I was struck by how close to home the story strikes–for Noah, for me, for all of us.
Noah’s version of Jonah:
God told Jonah to go to a special place but Jonah didn’t listen. He went on a boat to another city instead. So God sent a storm and threw Jonah into...