Book Review: God Is Better Than Trucks

What is God like? When a child asks this question—or a similar one—how should we answer?

There’s a real sense in which God is nothing like anyone or anything in a child’s world. (He’s not much like anything in an adult’s world, either.) “To whom then will you compare me, God asks, “that I should be like him?” (Isaiah 40:25 ESV). The right answer to his question is “no one!” There is nothing in creation that is like the Creator (Isaiah 46:9). He is so far above and beyond the things he has made that there is really no comparison to be made (Isaiah 46:5).

How, then, do we bridge the gap between a child’s limited concrete knowledge of the material world and true knowledge of our infinite, transcendent God? How can we explain to a child what our God, who is pure spirit, and cannot be seen or touched, is like?

Even though God is like nothing in his creation, everything in creation reflects the One who made it. Every created thing points to its Creator. Throughout scripture, God uses some of the small ways things in creation reflect him to teach truths about himself. Scripture calls God a rock (Deuteronomy 32:18), because God, as the ultimate protector, is a little bit like a rock, which can also protect people from harm. God is full of life and strength, and, in a much lesser way, so is a cypress tree, so God tells us, "I am like an evergreen cypress" (Hosea 14:8). Even things made by his image bearers point to him, so he likens himself to some of them, too—a fortress (Psalm 46:7, 11), or a  shield (2 Samuel 22:3), for example—to explain aspects of his divine nature.

We can’t see or touch God, but we can see and touch things in our world. As he explains himself using illustrations from the material realm, we can know something about our immaterial, transcendent God. But we need to be careful how we use these illustrations, because, in the end, no illustration, or even a collection of illustrations, can adequately describe God.

In the picture book God Is Better Than Trucks, Sarah Reju teaches children about God’s nature and works using things from their world and their interests—trucks and other modes of transportation, twenty-six of them, from A to Z—and finds the perfect balance between these two truths: God is like nothing in his creation, but everything in his creation reflects him.

In this book, children can learn about God by comparing him to an ambulance, a bulldozer, a car carrier, a jet, a kayak, and many more. Each comparison is accompanied by a verse from scripture that supports it. Here is the text from the page for the letters F and G, which accompanies a picture of a fire truck and a garbage truck:

The fire truck sprays water to put out a fire, but God sends rain to water the whole earth. God is better than fire trucks! The garbage truck cleans up garbage, but God cleans our hearts. God is better than garbage trucks!

By the end, a child will know something about God’s nature and his works, and it will also be clear that God is so much better and so far beyond any truck that exists—or ever could exist—that there is really no comparison at all.

If you are looking for a book about God to read aloud to a 3-5 year old, you can't do much better than God Is Better Than Trucks. It would make a great Christmas gift, too.

Sarah Reju is a pastor’s wife, homeschooling mom of five kids, and lives in Washington, D.C.