So, the last few
weeks, I’ve been really hung up on something. I’ve studied faith, and consider myself a pretty faithful
and trusting guy, but one thing has been bothering me: and that’s this idea of
a child-like faith. I understand
it, and I get the picture of Jesus calling forth the children, but what does
this really mean? I mean, later in
the New Testament we’re called to put away our childish behavior and move on to
mature things. So there lies the
inner battle I have been having the last couple of weeks.
Now, I work with
children, which I still can’t believe I get paid to do, but that’s beside the
point. The other day, we were in
the gym and decided to turn the radio on.
We were all in the middle of several different games, but once the music
started, everyone stopped to listen.
I watched as one by one, pretty much all the younger kids started
dancing, while all the older ones and the workers took a seat to watch. I thought this was odd because it was
like the older we were, the quicker we sat down. When did we lose our freedom to dance? When did we find out that we were too
cool for a spontaneous dance party?
I have to be honest, the younger kids were really bad dancers, but they
loved every second of it.
I wonder if Adam
and Eve had had a child-like faith if they would have eaten the apple? Immediately after, they were embarrassed
of their nudity and had to cover themselves. Up to that point, nudity was perfectly acceptable, but then
knowledge of their surroundings set in, as did embarrassment. As we grow old, we gain knowledge. This is a double-edged sword though,
because we also gain awareness of our surroundings and begin to second-guess
the things that come naturally to us.
This whole idea is clear if you ever
people watch during a worship service and see the inner battle people have
about raising their hands or closing their eyes. Too often we are so worried about what’s around us that we
become paralyzed to the things that should be natural. What would we look like if we abandoned
the social norms and allowed our natural praise for God to be evident in
EVERYTHING? Maybe then the outside world would start looking at what makes us
different, rather than how we look and act exactly like them. We all need a little child like curiosity
to explore options that open up.
We all need a little child like faith to trust that God will do what He
says He will do. We all need a
little child like freedom to dance and be a little different from time to time.
