Driving down the road in an ’82 Dodge pickup with my four year old grandson on a beautiful Fall afternoon is not a bad thing at all.  I looked over and smiled and he smiled back.  He was wearing his new Carhartt red hoody sweat-shirt and his sun-glasses.  Earlier he had  informed me, as we were leaving the store, that I could call him, “dude” whenever he was wearing his new hoody.  So, there we were in the big red truck.  Dude, strapped into his booster seat and me.  Life is good, indeed. 

 Out of nowhere, Dude said, “Papa, where does God live?” 

“What?” as I blinked and tried to re-group.

“Where does God live?”

Probably not the best time to try and explain omnipresence to a four year old, I thought. Although, all the theology through the years tempted me to give it a go. After-all, “everywhere” is “everywhere.”

He is in fact the God who is everywhere, knows everything, can do everything and never changes. Maybe it would be better to wait  until Dude was five,  before we tackled all that.  So, I thought about  another answer.

“Well, God lives in our hearts” I said.  “He lives in our hearts.”

“He does?”

“Yes, sir, He does.  He lives in our hearts.”

“How does He get in there?”

“In where?” 

“In our hearts.  How does He get in there?”

In a flash I realized that in the front seat of that old Dodge pickup we were having a conversation that was of profound importance.  My, oh my.  You just never know, do you?  So, I waded in.

“He gets in there, when we ask Him.  He comes into our heart to live when we ask Him.  That’s how God gets into our hearts.  We have to ask Him.”

When I looked over, Dude was looking straight ahead and thinking. 

“Would you like God to live in your heart?”  I asked.

“Oh, He already does!” 

“He does?”

“Yeah, I asked Him to be in my heart”

“When did that happen?”

“My Mom was telling me about having God in my heart and that’s when I asked Him.”

When we stopped, I went over and unbuckled Dude and gave him a big hug and told him he had  done the best thing he could ever do by asking God to live in his heart.  He hugged me back and said, “I know, Papa.”

Truth is, everyone can have a red pickup experience.  Everyone, whosoever, can ask God to live in their heart.  All you have to do,  is ask!