When our children were little they worried about monsters under their bed. Through their elementary years their worries will reflect the real world. They’ll begin to worry about terrorism, floods, kidnapping, etc. All of these new worries come about because evil exists in our world. But, how in the world do we talk with our children about evil?
The bottom line is we need to talk with our children about evil, so they will KNOW about it. We don’t want our children to EXPERIENCE it. To talk about evil with our children means we talk with them about the fact that we have an enemy, and his name is Satan. In Matthew 4 we see Jesus knew His enemy and when it came to combating evil, Jesus spoke words of TRUTH.
When we talk with our children about evil in the world we need to speak TRUTH, not our opinion, but the TRUTH of God’s word. I’m reminded of John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly”. Our children can know there is an enemy who means harm, but we’re promised that Jesus has something totally different in mind.
This promise from Jesus is for eternity, which is why in our temporal world evil exists and will continue to exist. Our children can conquer evil by doing good. Jesus is the solution to evil, and He allows us to be part of the solution as well as we help our children to conquer evil by doing good (Romans 12:21).