Ok, but what happened first?
Small children have the funniest concept of time (or lack thereof!) 😅
Ask a 3-year-old about something that happened last week, and their story could span anywhere from that morning to last June!
Time is tricky for little ones…
Back in the day when I worked as a speech pathologist we often taught temporal sequencing (a fancy term for ordering events in time). I’d show children pictures for them to put in the right order—things like:
FIRST: Take out your bowl,
THEN: Pour in the cornflakes and milk,
LAST: Pick up the spoon and eat.
Kindergarten and Special Education teachers are big on teaching these concepts too. Learning the meaning of FIRST and THEN was a game changer for our son Hugo.
“First put on your sunscreen, then you can play in the sand-pit.” (SUCCESS! 🙌)
It might seem simple to us — but for little ones it’s a big deal.
I’m now well conditioned to using FIRST and THEN! So while reading 1John 4:19 this verse stood out to me — “We love because He first loved us.”
Let’s do some temporal sequencing here:
FIRST: God loved us.
THEN: We loved Him in return.
NOW: We can love others.
And that’s what this song is all about…
It all begins with God. With His love, shown to us through His Son, Jesus. We could not love unless He loved us first.