What to Say When Your Child Asks a Hard Question About God

It’s 8:40pm. The light is off, you’re halfway out the door, and your seven year old says, “If God is real, why didn’t He make Grandma better?”

You stop in the doorway. Whatever you had planned for the next twenty minutes is gone, and you’re aware that you don’t have an answer, at least not one that fits in a dark bedroom. Knowing what to say when your child asks hard questions about God is not really a knowledge problem. Most of us could look up a decent theological answer. The difficulty is that the question arrives at the worst possible hour, from someone small, and it matters what we do in the next four seconds.

Your face answers first

Before you say anything, your child is reading you. Ministry Spark puts the risk directly: “You never want a child to feel as if they shouldn’t inquire about something to a safe adult.” A flicker of alarm, and they learn that this subject is off limits, which is the one outcome nobody wants.

So the first move is not a sentence. It’s staying relaxed. Sit back down on the edge of the bed. Whatever they just asked, they asked because they trust you with it.

Try “I don’t know, but”

Brad M. Griffin of the Fuller Youth Institute suggests a specific opener for exactly this moment: “I don’t know, but …” and then finishing it with something true. “That’s an important question.” “Let’s find out.” “I wonder that too.”

Those four words do more work than they look like they do. They tell your child the question is allowed. They tell them you’re not going to hand them something tidy and fake. And they keep you in the conversation instead of ending it.

Griffin’s larger point is that parents don’t need advanced theology to do this well. What children need, he writes, are “caring adults who listen to and validate their questions and struggles” instead of shutting them down with prepared answers.

What to say when your child asks hard questions about God, step by step

Find out what’s actually being asked. Ministry Spark tells of a child asking “When is Jesus coming back?” who turned out to be asking about a statue that had gone away to be repaired. Kids’ questions are often narrower than they sound. A gentle “what made you think about that?” costs nothing and can change the entire conversation.

Ask about the feeling, not just the fact. “How does that make you feel?” is a question worth having ready. A lot of hard questions about God are carrying something underneath: a worry, a loss, a scary thing they heard at school. The feeling usually needs attention more than the doctrine does.

Wonder together instead of concluding. Ministry Spark again: “Sometimes, we don’t need to answer a question, we just need to wonder about it together.” You’re allowed to say “that’s one of the things I still think about” and leave it open. Sitting with a question alongside your child is not a failure to parent them. It’s a demonstration that faith is large enough to hold questions.

Say when you’ll come back to it. If the question deserves more than 8:40pm can give it, say so, and name a time. “That’s a really good one and I want to think about it. Can we talk about it after school tomorrow?” Then actually do it. The follow-through is what makes the deferral trustworthy rather than a brush-off.

The permission underneath all of this

James writes to people who are short on answers: “Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5).

That last part is the part worth noticing. Without finding fault. God is not annoyed by the asking, from you or from the small person asking you. The question your child brought into the dark is one they’re allowed to bring, and so is yours.

One thing to try tonight

Practice the opener before you need it. “I don’t know, but that’s a really good question.” Say it once, in your own voice, so it’s the thing that comes out when you’re tired and caught off guard, instead of a change of subject.

If you’d like questions like these to have somewhere easier to land, Bedtime Bible Stories ends every story with three short discussion questions written for your child’s age, which is often how the bigger ones surface in the first place.