We are often told “we must become more like children” to improve our relationship with God.
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.”
And I agree. However, there is a lot to be taken from this to impact our daily lives, how we go about being human beings, living out our relationship with God in the outside world.
1 John 3:1 “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
We should embrace it, there is no better position to be in a relationship, than to be the doted on child. And we couldn't expect any other role or position.
My friends Andrew and Rachel had a baby in September, his name is Noah, a name with a great association, and I believe that he could grow up to be as great, if not greater than his namesake, God has placed no limit on what he can achieve.
This little bundle of life, love and hope is so innocent, so full of God given potential. With his ENTIRE life ahead of him.
Well really, we all have our ENTIRE lives ahead of us, John 3:16 - for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Death is a part of life, and once we leave our earthly bodies behind, we will go onto heaven and live forever, therefore it doesn’t matter if you give your life to Jesus at 10 or 100, so long as you do, you will have eternal life. As such we could have our entire lives ahead of us.
Well that is evidence enough for me really.
We are children, not only in the sense that our God is Our Father, and we need to submit to Him and His will, but actually, we need to look at life in the same way that a child does.
Remember an age when ANYTHING was possible, your Dad was indestructible, you could play for hours, you could scuff your knees and wouldn’t notice.
Well this is how we should be looking at our lives right now.
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE
God provides.
Full stop. In the same way our parents did for us, they gave us clothes, food, taught us how to ride a bike, how to tie our laces.
God does the same, but on a higher level. Even when our parents are providing for us, He has been doing it since the moment of our conception, and will continue to do so forever. Regardless of our actions, regardless of how badly we have acted, He has continued loving us, and will welcome us back with open arms. And during any time when we have not know Him or turned our backs to Him, he has continued loving and providing for us, because that is what a Father does.
He loves us because of who He is, not because of who we are.
Now, back to Noah.
He is pretty oblivious to what is going on in the world around him, besides the fact that occasionally he will get a bit crotchety if he his hungry/windy/tired/requiring changing.
He doesn’t seek out his next meal, he doesn’t look for alternative means of comfort, and whoever is looking after him is fine by him. The same is the case with us. We need to stop questioning the provision we are given, start accepting it, and get working on the relationship. As we mature in our faith, we can come to begin to understand who it is that loves us and provides for us.
It isn’t easy, to put faith in and to rely on something that we can’t see. To trust an unseen God who makes sure we never go without doesn’t come overnight. But Noah doesn’t see it this way. He doesn’t know what day of the week it is, or whether it’s the first or fifth time he’s been fed. All he can offer is his complete and utter dependence. And that is all we can really offer God. The part we need to realise is that is enough for God, and we should make the most of the fact that, the same as Andrew desires no more than for Noah to be happy and healthy, God wants us to be happy and healthy. But most of all he made us to have a relationship with him.
Its not easy to let go, but if a baby can do, we should be able to have a good go ourselves!
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Thanks for those thoughts John. I think the father-son relationship goes a step further than that though. The truth is that although Noah is not consciously aware of it, the fact is that Andrew would do ANYTHING, whatever it takes, to keep Noah safe from being hurt. In an even greater sense, our heavenly father would do, and did do, whatever it takes to keep us in right relationship with him. Why would a loving father do anything less?
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