I’m taking a break from my “Women of the Old Testament” series this week. I will return to my exploration of obscure women in the Old Testament in my next post.
Pray
Lord, I call upon You. Hurry to me! Listen to my voice when I call to You! May my prayer be counted as incense before You; the raising of my hands as the evening offering. Set a guard, Lord, over my mouth. Keep watch over the door of my lips. Do not incline my heart to any evil thing… Amen.
Read
Reflect
I was in a conversation recently about a highly-debated theological concept, and one of the people I was discussing it with reminded me that Jesus calls His disciples to a child-like faith, which means trusting at face value, believing something without requiring an explanation, and simple obedience based on a “child-like trust” of the person in charge (i.e. Jesus).
Indeed, in Matthew 18, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom?” Jesus responded by calling a little child to Himself and set him among them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you change and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. So whoever will humble himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Disciples of Jesus are called to “change and become like little children.”
“Faith like a child” has come to mean a trusting, simple, immediate obedience, and I used to agree with that interpretation of what Jesus meant here.
But then I became a mother. And I have redefined my views on what a child-like faith is. In the words of Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
I have five kids, and something I have observed over the years is that, at least in my home, the opposite is true: my children rarely take my word for it at first. In fact, my adult daughter is the one who is most likely to take my word for it (and encourage her younger siblings to) because she has learned, over time, that my words are trustworthy. My younger children are the pure skeptics, the ones who ask infinite whys. If I say no, the child-like response I get is not full trust, but rather skepticism. “Why?” or its variant, “Why not?” or even “Why, Mom?” This is followed by inevitable statements like, “But what about…” and the like.
We have a two-year-old in our weekly Bible study, and on Thursday, she embodied exactly what I’m saying here. Her mom told her not to go upstairs, and she smiled at her and started walking upstairs, in typical two-year-old fashion. Her mom told her to color on the coloring book, and she looked at her, smiled, and started trying to color on something else (much to her mom’s embarrassment, but not to my surprise; I had two-year-olds once, too!) Immediate obedience, no questions asked, is not what I associate with a two-year-old.
So my experience and observations have led me to the conclusion that, by pointing to a child, Jesus was not necessarily insinuating that the faith He was looking for in His disciples was about taking things at face value. So what did Jesus mean when He said, “you must change and become like a little child?”
The main point of Matthew 18:1-5 is that we don’t enter the kingdom of heaven by being great, but rather by being humble. And how do we become humble? According to Jesus, we become like children.
Here are a few observations about children (granted they are generalizations) that I think could be something for us to aspire to, and might be what Jesus was getting at here:
Children are malleable and still being formed, as opposed to adults who are stuck in their ways. Children are sponges! They learn so quickly, and mostly by observing the adults they look up to. When it comes to forming children, more is caught than taught. They observe and imitate the adults in their lives. I always knew what had happened at preschool, because each day, my daughter would come home and line up her stuffies, pretending to be Ms. Karianne (her teacher). I knew all of the phrases and instructions and intonation Ms. Karianne used, because my daughter imitated her to a T. Just two nights ago, two of my kids asked if we could eat outside, and they made place settings for each person, just like I do when we have guests for dinner. Children are always observing and learning, and so should disciples of Christ be.
Children are vulnerable and dependent; rather than self-sufficient and independent. As adults, our goal is to be financially stable and to not need to rely on others, and I maintain that this is a good goal to have. I am teaching my children how to manage their finances so that, one day, when they are on their own, they will be able to take care of themselves and their families. But even as we seek to be fiscally responsible, disciples of Christ understand that we are all vulnerable before God and completely dependent on Him for everything we have.
Last week in church, we looked at the story of the widow’s gift from Luke 21:
Now He looked up and saw the wealthy putting their gifts into the temple treasury. And He saw a poor widow putting in two lepta coins. And He said, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them; for they all contributed to the offering from their surplus; but she, from her poverty, put in all that she had to live on.”
This widow demonstrated faith like a child, because, in her vulnerability, she depended completely on God to provide for her. How many of us give our tithes and offerings (financial or otherwise) in such a way that we demonstrate total dependence on God?
Children believe what they believe earnestly, and sometimes it takes a lot of convincing to change their minds. “The Bible says it, that settles it!” is the pious version of “Because I said so,” and neither response is convincing to a child. My friend Amy wrote, “I think a child’s ability to imagine is wrapped up in this. Imagination is the organ of faith…” Children possess such imagination, which we adults lose somewhere along the way unless we are very careful not to. Children also have an almost insatiable curiosity and the tenacity to keep asking questions until they are satisfied, whereas adults tend to shrug their shoulders and walk away or just keep ourselves surrounded by people who will not challenge our beliefs. I believe God invites our “infinite whys,” asked in the context of a trusting, dependent relationship between child and Father.
Children, at least in an ideal world, are generally not anxious about things like what they will eat, drink, or wear (Mt. 6:31), whereas adults are the ones lying awake at night worrying about these kinds of things. I need to add the caveat “in an ideal world,” because, as a foster parent for eight years, I know that some children are tremendously anxious, and for good reason. But generally, ideally, children do not lie awake at night wondering where their next meal will come from. Again, they are totally dependent on Mom and Dad to provide for them, and they don’t give a second thought to how that will happen. Speaking to His disciples, Jesus said, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him… Do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the sky, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather crops into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more important than they?” (Mt 6:8, 25-26) Children are not anxious, and neither should Jesus’s disciples be.
Children are not self-conscious, but are rather self-forgetful. John Ortberg, in The Life You’ve Always Wanted, says, “Humility… involves a healthy self-forgetfulness.” Remember, in this passage from Matthew, Jesus is calling His disciples to seek humility rather than seeking greatness. If you have ever watched a group of children playing together, running around the yard or enjoying an ice cream cone on a summer day, you have witnessed self-forgetfulness, that life-giving virtue from which joy erupts. Sadly, somewhere around fourth or fifth grade, this self-forgetfulness is replaced by self-consciousness, and many adults never find their way back from that. One antidote to the plague of self-consciousness is to play with small children as often as you can. (This is one argument for volunteering to serve in children’s ministry!)
Children are honest about what they think and don’t seem too worried about how their opinion might sound to someone else. Recently, I was talking with my kids about a church we attended, and I mentioned in passing that they don’t allow women to preach. “Well that’s dumb!” my daughter announced, and I was amused by her honesty. I have studied the arguments for and against different roles of women in church, and I know that there are many reasons faithful, earnest people hold to so-called “complementarian” views. But I also have to admit, my guttural reaction is the same as hers.
Of course, I would never say so. I’ve learned to couch my reactions in diplomacy. “Well that’s dumb!” has been replaced by, “I can see where you’re coming from, but have you considered…?”
I’m sure there are more traits I could think of, but these are the ones that came to mind initially. And all of them point to a humility unique to children.
Apply
Consider these child-like traits: malleability/teachability, vulnerability/dependence, strong conviction/curiosity/imagination, free from anxiety, self-forgetfulness, and honesty. How might meditating on these traits in the light of your own life help you cultivate a more child-like faith?
How might cultivating these traits help you grow in obedience and trust in God?
Photo by Erika Giraud on Unsplash
Coffee Stains on my Bible 