In the excellent The Slavery of Death, Richard Beck says the book presents the gospel as he’d explain it to his kids. When reading that, I thought “This guy didn’t just write a book for fun or profit or strangers. He wrote it for his kids!” How cool is that?
Cool enough that it inspired me to dig for something to tell my kids that captures the gospel as I understand it. And, of course, my big plan is to tell them the gospel every night before they go to bed.
So, thanks in part to Richard Beck, every night when I tuck my kids in bed I say, “God loves you and he takes care of you. You love God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and people, and things will work out alright. You may have tough times along the way, but everything will work out.”
It’s not perfect, of course, but I think it covers just about everything. Plus, it makes me happy as a lark to hear them say “I lub God, Zesus, duh Holy Spearit, and peepul.”