When bestselling author Sally Lloyd-Jones began writingJesus, Our True Friend: Stories to Fill Your Heart With Joy, her new picture book, she didn’t set out to write a book about friendship. But, she said, “a book knows what it wants to be before you do.”
“I started working on a few stories I hadn’t told before,” the British author told The Christian Post. “And as I put them together, I realized the theme of it all was, He was a friend to the friendless. He came to be with us. He’s not distant or judging us. He’s right alongside us. So the whole theme became friendship.”
The new Zonderkids book, illustrated by longtime collaborator Jago and released this week, gathers seven stories from Jesus’ life, told in the lyrical prose that has made Lloyd-Jones one of the most beloved voices in modern children’s literature.
It follows in the footsteps ofThe Jesus Storybook Bible,her 2007 classic that has sold more than 6 million copies, been translated into over 70 languages, and remains a staple in homes, churches, Sunday schools and classrooms around the world.
“Friendship encapsulates everything,” she said. “And for a child, especially, it’s wonderful to think they can have a best friend. I became a believer when I was just 4, and I knew Jesus was my best friend.”
That early experience of knowing Jesus as a friend, Lloyd-Jones said, was a lifeline in an environment where she’d internalized the idea of a fearful, rather than a loving, God.
“I grew up thinking God was angry and demanding perfection,” she said. “I thought He was looking to catch me out. I knew Jesus was my best friend, but I didn’t think God could love me because I wasn’t doing it right.”
That misunderstanding, she explained, is one many Christians, perhaps subconsciously, still carry, even into adulthood.
“Everything we see in Jesus is everything in God,” she said. “But sometimes we miss that. We think the Father is angry, while Jesus is kind. But they are one. And the whole story of the Bible is about His faithful love.”
“It makes me sad for God, really, that so many of us don’t see how loving He is,” she added.
Though simple and accessible to children, Lloyd-Jones’ stories convey deep theological truths, a balance she credited to a principle she learned from the late pastor Tim Keller: “If you do the research and you stop this side of complexity, you get simplistic. If you do the research and you go through complexity, you come out the other side to simplicity.”
“That’s always stayed with me,” she said. “If you really understand the theology, you can distill it down to its core. And the core of every story, even the frightening ones in the Old Testament, is God’s faithful love. It’s all about His plan to rescue us.”
That perspective, she added, is what keeps her writing from slipping into moralism or fear, adding: “Children don’t need to be told to ‘try harder.’ They need to be told they’re loved.”
Nearly two decades after its publication, The Jesus Storybook Bible continues to change lives around the world. Lloyd-Jones said she’s continually amazed by its reach and deeply moved by the letters she receives from families, pastors and children.
“What moves me most is hearing that children can hear about God’s love in their own language,” she said. “That work of the translators is heroic. And the stories I receive from readers, they fuel me to keep going. … When you get a letter from a child or a parent saying, ‘Your book helped me know God loves me,’ it’s everything. That’s why I keep writing.”
According to Jones, central to the success of her books is her partnership with illustrator Jago, known for his warm, yet abstract, images.
“There’s something mysterious about it,” she said of his art. “His art reaches 1-year-olds, but it also reaches 90-year-olds. It’s not slick. It’s very stylized, and it has this God-given ability to speak to everyone.”
“If it had been done by the wrong artist, I don’t think we’d be talking today,” she added. “A picture book is a story told in two languages: the words and the art. They have to match. It should almost feel like I did the art and he did the words. That’s what we’ve got, and it’s a blessing.”
Though Lloyd-Jones writes for children, her books have long resonated with adults as well. She contended that because it’s a picture book, adults who are resistant to church or struggle with religious trauma let their guard down. Children’s books, she emphasized, can reach readers that theology books often cannot.
“No one comes to a picture book defensively. There are no barriers. They get drawn in, and they get to hear the beauty of the Gospel without all the obstacles. They read it with wonder, like a child again,” the author said.
“If you gave someone who doesn’t go to church a dense book about redemption, they might never open it,” she said. “But they might read a picture book about love with their child. And once they hear that God really loves them, it ambushes them.”
Each story Lloyd-Jones writes, she said, changes her first. “Robert Frost said, ‘No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader,’” she said. “Every story had to move me before it could move the reader.”
One story in Jesus, Our True Friend that particularly moved her was Jesus and the woman caught in sin.
“She’s surrounded by bullies with stones, ready to destroy her,” Lloyd-Jones said. “And Jesus, who could condemn her, doesn’t. Instead, He asks the men to look at their own hearts. I think of that often, especially in our culture of stone-throwing. We’re all throwing stones online. But Jesus asks us first to look at ourselves. That really convicted me.”
Another favorite story, she said, was that of Mary and Martha. “We all identify with Martha; frantic, trying to do everything right,” she said. “But I realized, if Mary is listening to Jesus, who is Martha listening to? That question stopped me. Because so often we’re doing good things for Jesus, but we’re not actually listening to Him.”
“Every time I write a story, I get convicted all over again.”
Lloyd-Jones said that, like her previous work, she hopes Jesus, Our True Friend will spark conversations between parents and children about faith, love and grace.
“I hope families can read these stories and ask, ‘Are we trying to do everything right, but missing Jesus? What storms are we in right now? Where do we need His friendship?’” she said. “It’s a devotional in a way. A chance to luxuriate in the story and think about it. Because at the heart of everything, the Gospel is simple: God loves you, and He’s your friend.”
Leah M. Klett is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: leah.klett@christianpost.com
