Childlike

We celebrated one of my daughter's 3rd birthday party a couple weeks ago. It was a simple occasion. We went to one of those indoor playgrounds with a massive ball pool, just my 2 girls and their 2 cousins. Afterwards, we had dinner at Applebee's, nothing fancy at all. After the meal, we stuck 3 candles into a piece of chocolate cake and my daughter had just the best time blowing out those candles after her sister and cousins sang "Happy Birthday".

I realized after seeing this that with children, it's so simple. They enjoy the true essence of the moment. So what if the dinner was plain and the cake was just a piece of cake and there were no party favors? Would my daughter have enjoyed the cake more if it were bigger? Not at all! It's not like she would have eaten more than she did. She didn't need all the artifice we as adults need to make us feel like we are getting treated special on our birthdays. She was surrounded by her family, she had cake, and everyone sang for her. She was enjoying the pure essence of people celebrating her birthday.

It so happened that that weeks' Bible study that I was leading was Mark 10. There is a passage in this chapter where Jesus rebukes his disciples for pushing away the children. Jesus says we need to receive the kingdom of God like a child to enter it. To be childlike in receiving the kingdom of God. What does that mean? I think for me, observing my daughter's joy at the simple celebration we had for her, made me realize that we put many, many conditions and artificial trappings around God's simple message: God loves me like a son because his son died for my sins. We make it out to be more and we don't revel in it's great message. We fee like we HAVE to do our quiet time a certain way, we HAVE to behave in a certain way, we HAVE to be such and such a person. All those things will flow from us as we grow in faith. But most importantly, we just need to believe and accept the very basic and simple message--God loves me. We need to be childlike and enjoy it for the simple and pure gift that it is.

Something that my wife brought up in studying this passage that week was that children trust wholeheartedly. They expect that their parents will provide for them on a daily basis. They don't store up and save for the next day. She made the illustration of how funny would it be if my older daughter was stealing food out of the refrigerator and hoarding it under her bed for a rainy day. But isn't this the way we treat our heavenly Father? We think that whatever is the refrigerator is all that he has to offer us, when in reality he has not just the refrigerator but an endless warehouse full of food for us. We need to trust that God provides for us, and that his storehouse of spiritual food never runs out. We need to be childlike in our trust and thus our receiving of his kingdom.