Behold Your Little Ones

Yesterday my family traveled to Florida for a family reunion. After we got our bags at the airport and walked away, my youngest child, age 6, exclaimed, “My car seat!” Sure enough, we had forgotten her car seat, and so I ran bag to the luggage carousel to find an airline employee looking for the owner of a booster seat. All the adults in the group had forgotten, but she remembered.  When we finally got to the big van we were renting, we put in the code to the lock box to get the key for the car and it wouldn’t work. There was an arrow on a little knob pointing left, and so I assumed I needed to push it to the left after entering the code. But it wouldn’t budge. I pushed it left, right, up, and down, but it was to no avail. I tried it along with two other adults, and we were all unsuccessful. Then my second youngest child who was watching the operation attentively, told me to turn the knob in a circle. I tried it and sure enough it popped right open. Three adults had failed to open it but my eight-year-old son figured it out without even touching it. At that point I began to wonder what my next oldest child would do that I would fail at. Once we got to our place I looked everywhere for the disposal switch and couldn’t find it. My ten-year-old came over and put her head under the sink and found the switch hidden up underneath. That was after at least three adults had looked for it and failed to find it. These small experiences reminded me that we should not underestimate the wisdom and power of children! As the young boy Gavroche sings in the musical for Les Misérables, “Goliath was a bruiser who was as tall as the sky, But David threw a rock, and gave him one in the eye. I never read the Bible but I know that it's true, It only goes to show what little people can do.”

            When the Savior was among the Nephites, He sought to point the people to their children. He taught them, “And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and become as a little child, and be baptized in my name, or ye can in nowise receive these things. And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child, or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God” (3 Nephi 11:37-38). After teaching them that they needed to be like little children, He then showed them how He felt about their children. The account relates, “And it came to pass that he commanded that their little children should be brought. So they brought their little children and set them down upon the ground round about him, and Jesus stood in the midst; and the multitude gave way till they had all been brought unto him.” He prayed with the children gathered around Him, and “no tongue can speak, neither can there be written by any man, neither can the hearts of men conceive so great and marvelous things as we both saw and heard Jesus speak; and no one can conceive of the joy which filled our souls at the time we heard him pray for us unto the Father.” After they arose, “he said unto them: Blessed are ye because of your faith. And now behold, my joy is full. And when he had said these words, he wept, and the multitude bare record of it, and he took their little children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the Father for them. And when he had done this he wept again; And he spake unto the multitude, and said unto them: Behold your little ones” (3 Nephi 17:11-12, 17, 20-23). His joy was full was because He was with the children. He wept because of His love for the children. That as a resurrected Being He would come among this people and spend time showing love to their children underscores the importance of children in His eyes. His injunction is a powerful one for each of us today: “Behold your little ones.”

            One more experience among the Nephites also highlights His focus on children. Mormon summarized His actions this way, “And it came to pass that he did teach and minister unto the children of the multitude of whom hath been spoken, and he did loose their tongues, and they did speak unto their fathers great and marvelous things, even greater than he had revealed unto the people; and he loosed their tongues that they could utter” (3 Nephi 26:14). Not only did He spend time praying for and blessing the children, but He taught them and ministered to them and gave them power beyond their natural abilities. We don’t know what those children uttered to their fathers, but the fact that what they taught were “greater” than the things that the Savior Himself had taught shows how He valued them. And it suggests that we should not ignore what children may be ready to teach us—all too often we dismiss them for their lack of knowledge and get annoyed with what they may try to tell us. But as the Savior urged us, “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 18:10).