mattbraunlin
Member
Like a Child
Dedicated to Sara GrovesIn an early chapter of Stephen King's beautiful fairy tale The Eyes of the Dragon, young Prince Peter is given a spelling assignment by his mother Queen Sasha. First she tells him to spell the word god. Then she tells him to spell it backwards. When he does, he is astonished to discover that it spells the word dog. She uses his profound revelation to teach him a melancholy lesson about the nature of mankind.
Now probably the two most important Biblical authors are Moses and Paul. These two great men wrote a huge proportion of the Old and New Testament, respectively, with God revealing much of his most crucial teaching to humanity through them.
If I have learned anything at all through my journey with Jesus, I can state pretty certainly that as Moses wrote the Law and as Paul wrote his Letters, they knew themselves for what they were in God's eyes: little children, writing the clumsiest scrawl guided patiently by their Father's hand.
I can't see how they would have been worthy of such monolithic honour had they thought any better of themselves than that.
We are children, my friend. We are helpless, ignorant, vulnerable toddlers, refusing food, causing trouble, fighting over toys and at all times utterly dependent on our Father in heaven.
And this never, ever changes. To the contrary, the closer we get to Jesus, the more we know it to be true of ourselves.
In Mark chapter 10, Jesus was staying at a house in Judea.
And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them. (NASB 1995)
The disciples, so wise in their own eyes, assumed that the Messiah had better things to do than associate with a bunch of kids. Instead, they aroused Jesus' anger (again), and learned that they were to follow the children's example.
They were to know, at all times, that they were as helpless as infants, absolutely no closer than four-year-olds to salvation or self-sufficiency or even common-sense.
In God's eyes, the very wisest of us need the closest and most attentive care. Not one of his Laws, commandments and regulations are anything more than the equivalent of a father putting a plastic safety-plug in an electrical socket.
But of course, there is a positive side to this idea as well! Because little children wonder at life! They live in a continual state of amazement at the world around them, marveling at tall trees, grasshoppers, an airplane up in the sky. Give your life to God and he will return this childish wonder to you. You will look with utter amazement at the world God has created, at the complexity of music and Shakespeare and seashells and the human body. You will tremble in awe at the infinite enormity of the universe, and be staggered at any given moment to remember that it could fit comfortably on the edge of God's fingernail.
And staggered most of all, that that God wants a relationship with you.
So often I have forgotten this lesson. So often I have defied or forgotten my Father in heaven, and wound up frightened and angry and desperate. Stuck up a tree, stranded in a crowd, scared of the monster in the closet. And when I ran back to Him, and felt his loving embrace envelop me once again, I clung to him in tears of aching relief, wondering at his warmth and gentleness and love.
And then I took his hand and kept walking. And in the knowledge of his supervision, I began to wonder once again. To look with purest amazement at the world around me. To see. To learn. To thank him for the beauty of the works of his hand.
To long for you, my dear friend, to be transformed from a child who thinks he is a warrior to a warrior who knows he is a child. I long to fight by your side in this great and beautiful life, and to spend eternity with my Father and yours.
I long for you to wonder again.
