Rather than “growing up”, try to live your life “growing down” for the spirit of a child will inherit the earth.
“Oh, to be young again.”
We’ve all probably said that at one time or another – or at least thought it. Personally, I find that as I age, the wonders of youth flood my memory more and more.
Why?
Because it was magical… It was a time of life where the toils and burdens of adulthood were nowhere to be found. Our minds were free to wander aimlessly and learn from all sorts of new experiences. We were free from stress, able to fully and innocently enjoy the things we did, without having to sugarcoat their façade to make ourselves focus and enjoy them.
Our spiritual lives are like that.
If you were fortunate enough to have been saved by the grace of God at an early age, you will remember the absolute acceptance of God’s omniscient power. At that time, we saw the world through the eyes of a child. We didn’t see all the reasons that bombard us on a daily basis, insisting that He’s not real… that there can be no way that a God who loves us would allow all the bad things going on in the world right now. As children, He was God and we had pure and simple faith in that.
In today’s Tiny Words. Big Life. Bible verse, the Apostle Matthew tells the story of Jesus correcting his disciples – those were the adults that were His closest (and chosen) followers. They knew Jesus best and what He was bringing to the world. Even so, they apparently still didn’t get it.
According to Matthew, people were bringing children to see Jesus, most likely their parents, for Jesus to lay His hands on them and pray for them. The disciples were obviously annoyed by the throngs of people coming to Jesus with children, taking up His time and thus not being able to do the things that they felt He should be doing, so – they rebuked the people.
Seeing this, Jesus told the disciples to not “hinder them (the children), for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these”.
What does that really mean?
When I try to answer that question, I’m reminded of the story of Nicodemus, when after being told by Jesus that he had to be “born again” to enter the kingdom of God, he wanted to know how that was possible. Nicodemus asked Jesus, “How can a man be born again when he is old? Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time?”.
BTW, this account in the Bible is the leadup to perhaps the most famous of all Bible verses – John 3:16.
Nicodemus’s questions led Jesus to ask him a question. “If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?”
The answer is “faith”.
Jesus is telling us to have the “faith of a child”… to not allow the “adult things” in our lives to interfere with the message of His love for us and His commandment to spread the Gospel. We’re to take these things literally without our normal proclivity to analyze, skepticize, and push aside.
That’s what faith is.
The Tiny Words. Big Life. takeaway is to pray and ask God to cut the ties that bind our mind into believing only the things that we can prove with our eyes. These things have become an anchor that we drag around and prevent us from seeing the glory of God as He meant for us to see it.
And while it might be OK to be skeptical of claims you see on TV for the remarkable cleaning power of the latest new laundry detergent, having the same mindset about the kingdom of God is the very thing Jesus rebuked his disciples for.
So, rather than telling you to “Grow Up!” like we all often do, I’m telling you, emphatically, to “Grow Down!” Release your inner child on the world and let God use your faith in its most powerful form!
Matthew 19:13-14
13 Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. 14 Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”