“Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, They are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.”
I grew up singing those words and never knew the name Herbert Woolston – the man who wrote them.
Born just before the Civil War, Woolston must have been a forward-thinking man. His lyrics crossed racial lines at a time when people were divided by their skin color – not to mention the law of the land. It’s likely his words made folks just as uncomfortable as Jesus did when he opened his arms to children.
It is easy to sing the lyrics to “Jesus Loves the Little Children” but it is much harder to actually practice them.
If Jesus, who had no children of his own, cared for kids as deeply as he did … what does that mean for his church today?