Childlike
Song of the Week: Have My Heart [Live] by Elevation Worship, 2020
Book of the Week: Water Buffalo Theology by Kosuke Koyama, 1974
What a Friday it’s been - almost passed out getting blood drawn at the doctor, ate a sandwich, then my favorite part of the day: went on a short run with the boys. It’s been snowing since the morning, but as a follow up to last week’s talk on my rule of life, despite the snow, I needed to get my mile in today. I was getting ready to run and my roommate Sam (working remotely because Knoxville is shut down) offered to run with me, then at the start we ran up to our friend Chris’ house who lives up the street to see if he was home and wanted to run, and he was! It felt like I was a kid running around to my friends’ houses to see if they wanted to hang out, and it was awesome.
It reminded me of being childlike in our relationship with God. We’re all born with an already existing task of trying to discern how to rightly and accurately to the creator of the universe. It’s a wild job, but thankfully, and despite what many may tell you, we’re no longer left to our own devices in order to figure things out; with every option at his fingertips, and no obligation binding him to it, God demonstrated how we are to rightly view him in an incredibly simple yet profound move: he told us.
In Luke 11, the disciples ask a question you’ve now doubt asked before, how are we supposed to pray? What the heck is prayer anyway? What should I say? Do I say anything at all? How do I say it? Jesus wastes no time by providing them with an example: pray for God’s will to be done, pray to be kept from temptation to sin, pray for forgiveness, and don’t pray arrogantly, or for the approval of others. For our purposes, we note the address of the prayer: our Abba. With every manner of communication at his disposal, Jesus tells us to call God “Father” or more accurately, “Dad”.
Scripture doesn’t tell us to have “childlike” faith, per se. Bible nerds might jump on me for it, so I want to caveat a little, but in Mark 10, Jesus says “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” What does this mean? Receive the gospel with joy and readiness, humility and hope, and a desire to share with others, yes. But I also think it bleeds into how we live our lives.
I house-sat for a mentor over Christmas break and one morning I looked up on the sill above the sink and there was a coffee mug tray that had an inscription: “Enjoy Life - Ecc. 11”. I’m reminded that life itself is to be enjoyed. I’ll be honest, I meet too many miserable Christians. I’m not putting down people going through hard seasons - I’ve been there, we all have, but to be mature about it, I meet Christians whose constant state is down and I just think they’re missing something. I’d say joy, but I don’t think it’s that - joy comes from a deeper freedom that we have in Christ, where the image management drops off, the grace overflows, and we find out that we can have fun. Hang out with your friends today, go for a walk, and play a game. Eat good food, drink good wine, and watch corny movies. Be a kid, Heaven awaits.
In love,
Josh
