Matthew 18:3-4
"And he said: 'Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."
Have you ever been trying to do something and felt like it should be a lot easier than you're making it. I was a child of the eighties and I can tell you back than one of the hardest things that someone could do was program a VCR. One of the funniest things that you can watch is someone spending hours trying to program the time and date on a VCR. It always starts out to be a simple task that should take moments but ends up taking hours. The person doing the programming goes from calm cool and collected and ends up in an Incredible Hulkesque rage about how to get it done. They would consult the manual and call the phone number to get help. They called 15 of their friends and still nothing.
Hours after sitting down to complete what should have been a simple task, that took moments, the most humorous part of this whole process would be to see a small child no older than 8 or 9 walk up to the VCR and have it programmed in a matter of moments. I often wonder why this was so simple for the younger child. What made it so easy for them? Many thoughts run through my brain maybe the younger generation was born with a special mutated gene that made them good with technology. Maybe we really do live in the The Matrix and somebody else is controlling that child's surroundings. (That's not it by the way) Truly I think it is much simpler than all of that. I think the child's mind doesn't cloud itself with everything around it. It doesn't have to focus on the stuff around it as well as the task at hand. They aren't distracted by all the stuff leading up to the programming of the VCR and all the stuff that needs to be figured out afterwards as well.
Watch a child at play, it's the same thing. They can imagine themselves in a far off world for the matters of play in a matter of moments. It isn't hard for them, why? Because they don't care about what others say and they don't let things get in the way of them playing. They don't let "things" distract them from the simple joy of enjoying their playtime.
I truly believe that we let things get in the way of what we believe and our faith. We wonder why things happen so much and do not truly commit to the idea of following Jesus and loving others the way He taught us to love. We want answers to stuff that frankly we may never find the answer to while we are here on earth.
In Matthew 18 two of Jesus' closest disciples are arguing about who will have better favor and position in the kingdom of God. Jesus basically says to them that you are making this harder than it needs to be fellas. Just be like a child and believe because you're Father says. That is all you have to do. You guys are making faith harder on yourselves than it really needs to be.
I am not saying that you will not have trials and life will not be hard, but faith in Jesus during those times should be "like a child". We should trust our daddy, our father, our rabbi and the lover of our souls. Have you ever wondered something about God and wondered why He doesn't reveal it to your heart. Could it be as simple that God knows that we don't necessarily need the answer the way we wanted. He didn't look at the disciples and give them the answer they expected. He instead answered by telling them to focus more on simplifying your thoughts on faith and be like this child and don't let your mind get distracted by stuff that doesn't matter as much as faith in the Father.
As followers of Christ our jobs is not to argue over things, but rather to trust that God is sovereign, all powerful and that His love does conquer everything that can stand against us. Being right about the details of the faith does not weigh nearly as much as the faith in a Savior. Keep you're eyes focused on the Savior of your soul and watch what he can and will do through you.
Thought question:
Is there anything in your thoughts or life that keep you from just trusting in the Jesus and having "faith like a child"?
