Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven...
I think that kids don't have all the hang ups that adults have. They aren't busy looking around at what others are doing and what others might think of them. They naturally trust those who take care of them. They won't trust perfectly, but they really don't have any choice. Kids are always being toted around wherever their parents go, so they are always willing just to go. Little Josie wants to go with me every time. She doesn't know or care where I am going or what I am doing, she just wants to go. Because children don't have a big picture of how bad and awful the world really is, they innocently thing that everyone is "nice."
So the complete trust in God is what we really need that is like a child, but the context of those verses in Matt 18 is really important. The disciples ask a question - who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven - I think they are really asking, "which of us is the greatest?" In Jesus' classic style he doesn't answer their question but gives them a better thing to think about. A small child is never in her wildest dreams going to think she is the greatest at anything. She may fuss and scream for her way, but she does that because she knows she small and insignificant next to the "big people" around her. I think the heart of Jesus' response is that we are never, ever, going to be great in God's kingdom by thinking we are big and bad.
The economy of God is that in Him and through childlike faith and trust in Him alone, the weak and powerless can do anything that God wants to do. We have to change from the big, bad, proud men & women that we are and become weak and helpless, fulling falling on his strong arms to hold us up.
It's been said that Christians are weak because they use their faith as a crutch to lean on in hard times. (like Everitt McGill in the O Brother Where Art Thou movie said, mocking his friends being baptized, "Hard times flush the chumps." He also said, "Baptism - you two are dummer than a bag o' hammers.")
The truth is that faith is not just a crutch. It is a stretcher, and only when we fall completely on it face down helpless before God can we really be a worshiper.
1 comment:
Good observations - reminds me of my 9 year old son, who appears to have the gift of faith - he shows a heightened trust in God, and in his parents, that is demonstrated by actions.
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