How Do You Explain Jesus to a 3-Year-Old Who Can't See Him?

A few nights ago, I was putting my three-year-old daughter to bed when I told her something I have probably said in one form or another many times before. If she ever feels scared, she can call on Jesus. She can pray to Him. She can know that He loves her and that she is never beyond His care.

My wife reinforced what I had said, but this time our daughter started asking questions.

Why can't I see Jesus?

It is an incredibly simple question until you actually try to answer it.

My wife tried to explain that Jesus is everywhere. Theologically, I understand what she was trying to communicate. We believe in a God who is not confined to one room, one building, or one physical location. But try explaining the omnipresence of God to a three-year-old at bedtime and you quickly discover how much adult Christian language depends upon concepts a small child hasn't developed yet.

Our daughter knows who Jesus is. She recognizes Him in pictures and in the Bible stories we share with her. She knows that Mommy and Daddy pray to Jesus. Lately, we have been saying the Lord's Prayer together before bed, and she is already beginning to remember parts of it.

But there is an obvious problem from her perspective.

She can see Mommy. She can see Daddy. She can see the characters in her cartoons and the princesses in her books. She can see a picture of Jesus, but when we tell her that Jesus Himself is real, loves her, hears her prayers and is someone she can call on when she's afraid, she cannot see Him standing in the room.

So why is Jesus real when so many of the other characters in her stories are not?

I realized that this is not a question I want to answer carelessly.

Jesus Was a Real Man

One of the places I think I can start is by making Jesus more concrete rather than immediately trying to explain everything supernatural about Him.

Jesus was a real man.

He lived on this earth. He ate food. He wore clothes. He walked from place to place. He had friends. He became tired. He experienced hunger. People spoke to Him and touched Him. He lived among actual people in actual places, and eventually He was crucified.

For a three-year-old, I think those facts matter.

Children this young are already developing an understanding of what is real and what is pretend, but that distinction is still developing. Research into preschool development suggests that three-year-olds can distinguish many real things from pretend ones, while their understanding of invisible things and the reality of story characters continues to mature through the preschool years.

That helps me understand the problem from my daughter's perspective. If Jesus primarily enters her world through illustrated Bible stories, while fictional characters also enter her world through illustrated stories, I cannot simply assume that she understands why Mommy and Daddy place Jesus in an entirely different category.

I don't want Jesus to become an imaginary friend with a Christian name.

At the same time, I don't think the answer is to give a three-year-old a lecture on historical evidence. There is historical material outside the New Testament referring to Jesus and the early Christian movement, including Josephus's references to Jesus and James and Tacitus's later account of Christus being executed under Pontius Pilate. There are legitimate historical questions adults can investigate.

My daughter does not need a lesson in first-century Roman historiography before bed.

She needs language appropriate to what she can understand now: Jesus isn't a cartoon character. He really lived here. People really knew Him. Christians believe He died on the cross, rose from the dead and is alive today.

The more difficult explanations can come as she grows.

I Don't Want to Water Christianity Down for Her

I have never liked watered-down explanations simply because the subject is uncomfortable.

That affects how I parent.

I have told my daughter that Jesus was perfect and that He went to the cross as a sacrifice for our sins so that we could be reconciled to our heavenly Father. She certainly does not understand the theology behind that statement yet. If I tried to explain the incarnation, sin, atonement, resurrection, ascension, the Trinity and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in a single bedtime conversation, I would probably confuse both of us.

But I don't think her inability to understand everything means I should tell her something untrue.

Perhaps there is a difference between watering down the truth and giving a child the amount of truth she is presently capable of carrying.

Jesus Himself welcomed children rather than treating them as interruptions. Christian parents are also instructed to teach God's words as part of ordinary family life—not merely in formal religious instruction, but while sitting at home, walking along the road, lying down and getting up.

That last part has become particularly meaningful to me.

This conversation didn't happen in a church.

It happened at bedtime.

Maybe that is exactly where some of these conversations are supposed to happen.

What Does a Three-Year-Old Actually Need to Know?

When I strip away my desire to give my daughter the perfect theological answer, what I most want her to understand right now is surprisingly simple.

Jesus loves her.

I want her to know that she can pray when she is afraid. I want prayer to become something natural rather than something reserved for emergencies or Sunday mornings. That is part of why my wife and I recently began saying the Lord's Prayer with her before bed. Before that, we mostly prayed freely. We decided there was value in teaching her the prayer Jesus gave His disciples, and she has been picking it up remarkably quickly.

I don't know how much she understands when she says those words.

That doesn't bother me as much as I thought it might.

Understanding can grow alongside the practice.

Eventually she will ask what those words mean. She will ask more difficult questions about where Jesus is, why He died, what Heaven is, who the Holy Spirit is and how Jesus can hear her when she cannot hear Him answering out loud.

When those questions come, I want to answer them.

But I also need to be willing to say something fathers sometimes have difficulty saying.

I don't know.

I cannot allow my daughter to grow up believing that Daddy has every answer. I don't. I am still learning too. My understanding of Scripture has changed as I have studied it more seriously, and my confidence in Christ became stronger as I began investigating the claims of Christianity for myself.

I want her to have that freedom someday too.

I Don't Want Her to Believe Just Because Daddy Does

This may be the hardest part for me.

I desperately want my daughter to know Christ. I believe one of the most important responsibilities I have in this life is guiding her toward Him.

But I cannot manufacture her faith.

I don't want to ram religious dogma down her throat until she learns that agreeing with Mommy and Daddy is the safest answer. Three-year-olds want their parents' approval. If I ask enough leading questions, I could probably teach her exactly which Christian answers make Daddy happy.

That isn't what I want.

I want her eventually to arrive at her own conclusions. I hope she asks questions. I hope she investigates the things we teach her. I hope that as she grows older, her belief becomes hers rather than remaining something she borrowed from her parents.

That doesn't mean my wife and I become neutral about what we believe. We aren't neutral. We believe Jesus Christ is Lord. Our daughter is going to grow up knowing that.

But there is a difference between teaching a child what you believe to be true and teaching her that questioning you is forbidden.

My own faith became stronger when I started asking harder questions. I began looking into the Bible, history and the claims surrounding Christ rather than simply accepting or rejecting Christianity because somebody else told me what to think.

My faith is no longer blind.

Someday my daughter may go through that process herself. When she does, I want her to know that difficult questions do not frighten me.

If She Can't See Jesus, She Can See What Following Him Does to Us

There is another answer to her question that has been bothering me since that bedtime conversation.

My daughter cannot see Jesus.

But she can see me.

That places considerably more responsibility on my shoulders than simply finding the right words to explain Him.

If I tell her Jesus teaches forgiveness but she watches me hold grudges, what am I teaching her? If I tell her to pray when she is frightened but she never sees me turn toward Christ when I am afraid, what does that communicate? If I teach her that Christians repent but Daddy can never admit when he is wrong, she will eventually notice the contradiction.

I will make mistakes. She is going to see some of them.

Perhaps that isn't entirely bad.

I want her to understand that Mommy and Daddy are not perfect. Only Jesus is. That means she also needs to see what happens after I fail. She needs to see me apologize. She needs to see me seek forgiveness. She needs to see me trying to control my anger, resolve conflict properly and treat people with grace even when I disagree with them.

I think Christians can sometimes become very judgmental toward one another, and I don't want that to define Christianity for my daughter. I want her to see conviction without arrogance, repentance without performance, and faith that is authentic enough to survive the admission that we still get things wrong.

My wife believing matters too. My daughter isn't growing up hearing that Jesus is simply something Daddy believes or something Mommy believes. She sees both of us praying. She hears both of us talking about Christ. She sees that this belief shapes our home.

We can tell her Jesus is real.

Our lives should demonstrate that we actually believe what we're telling her.

I Can Point Her Toward Jesus, but I Cannot Walk the Road for Her

One day my daughter will be old enough to understand things I cannot possibly explain to her now.

She will understand death differently. She will understand sacrifice differently. She will be able to wrestle with sin, grace, the resurrection and what it actually means to follow Christ.

She may challenge things I taught her.

I hope she does.

Not because I want her faith to fail, but because I don't want Christianity to exist in her life merely because it belonged to Mommy and Daddy first.

Right now, my job is smaller and somehow larger at the same time. I need to tell her the truth as honestly as I can. I need to answer her questions without pretending I know things I don't. I need to teach her Scripture. I need to pray with her. And I need to live in such a way that when I tell her Jesus Christ is real, she can see that her father actually lives as though He is.

I cannot give her faith.

I can point her toward the One I have placed my faith in.

Someday she may read this and understand why her father struggled so much with what seemed like such a simple bedtime question. The answer is that I know what is at stake. Of everything I could give my daughter in this lifetime, nothing matters more to me than helping guide her toward Christ.

The world will offer her countless things to put her identity, hope and love into. I cannot control which of them she will encounter, and I cannot make every decision for her.

What I can do is keep pointing her toward Jesus.

For now, she is three years old. She doesn't need to understand every mystery of God before I turn off her bedroom light.

She needs to know that Jesus loves her.

And tomorrow, we can keep learning about Him together.