Having a couple great grandchildren is an interesting experience. A child was one thing – responsibility. A grandchild was quite something else – freedom to enjoy. A great grandchild is informative in the extreme — we are far enough away from the responsibility to see the process of growth from very different eyes.
From a completely non-religious point of view I often come back to this idea from the Gospel of Luke. It’s the idea of what makes someone worthy of “favors.” And the idea of linking benevolence to childlike behavior is really interesting.
Think about how often maturity seems linked with success, Growing up, deserving the “finer things” of life, succeeding in life are rarely associated with childlike behavior.
Kids are enthusiastic — after all, the whole world is new to them. Inately they are curious (unless their curiosity has been quashed by over-protectiveness). They try and try and try to do things. You don’t see kids give up learning to walk just because they fall down a few times — no. “Walking is what bigger people do and I’m gonna walk if I have to fall down 1,000 times” is more their attitude!
Paying attention to what’s going on around them — that’s what little ones do. They are sponges that absorb and learn and adapt and change and they are attached to their parents — if the parents are there doing their job. I’ve never heard of a child that didn’t instinctively love its mother — no matter how frightened the mom may be of the prospect of mothering. After spending 9 months within the mother’s body she is all that the child knows. Little ones cling to mom’s for good reason — it’s comforting, they are protected, and until mom does a whole bunch of things to make the baby feel otherwise there is no convincing a child that there’s anything not absolutely wonderful about momma!
Switch seats for a moment and think about what it’s like to give a nice gift to someone. Who wants to give something nice to someone who moans and complains and doesn’t appreciate what they have. Wouldn’t you rather “reward” (if we’re using human concepts) someone — a child — who is going to be delighted with the gift. Isn’t it more “fun” for the giver as well as the receiver if the transfer is pleasing to both? I know that’s a stupid and insignificant idea — to compare a creator to a human giving a gift — but perhaps if you consider the absurd you might appreciate all the more the beauty of being childlike. Sure, they throw their fits of pique. Sure they can be fussy and cranky — but they are so full of life and so full of the desire to learn and grow that those expressions are momentary and the entirety of the child is aiming at growing up and being more like all the adults that they see around them.
The older I get the more I want to be like children. Not out of pursuit of some reward, as if following this one verse were going to do anything wonderful for me as a believer. No. What I find myself craving is an ever more basic and simple outlook on life and on human experience. I don’t want to be jaundiced by the corruption and ever present lies that fill life in 2024. I don’t want to be hardened because I see mature people behaving with malice and the intention to harm. Life is too wonderful to let the aberrations of bad human behavior make my present life anything less than what it can and should be.
If I change hats for just a moment and look at this from the Christian perspective, I am reminded that while Jesus taught his followers to pray for a kingdom to come there are still ways in which by coming to faith in Him you have already entered into the sovereignty of God. And subjects behave in the way proscribed by their ruler. There is no reason I have to wait to be kind, to care for others, etc. I can do all the things Jesus commanded me to do right now. Oh, those around me might think I’m foolish, wasting my time, squandering resources, etc., but if God is well pleased with my behavior that is what it’s all about. It’s rather like being an ambassador in a foreign country. My home, my life, my possessions belong to the country of my residence: a heavenly kingdom. Just like an ambassador I live by the rules of my homeland. I speak in the words my homeland uses, using the ideas that are common there — and not those of the land I am temporarily “posted” to, or “stationed” in.
I don’t know why I don’t see more people who call themselves “christians” behaving that way? It’s easy to cry out “Lord, Lord” on Sunday when you’re surrounded by a mass of others all saying the same thing. It’s not so easy to hand a loaf of bread to someone smelly, with not home, sitting on the corner with their hand out. Folks around you will see you. They’ll judge you — as well as judging the unfortunate soul you would help. Can’t have that; don’t want to be judged. Now do you?
Receiving life — day by day, hour by hour, like a little child. It is so easy to say, so easy to read the words and “know” what they mean in the language we speak — but brother….. it’s not so easy to live. Most of the time we don’t even realize what’s being said. The words trip off our lips like a leaky faucet. And perhaps in the heavenly realm those lazy, un-considered words are just as annoying as the drip, drip, drip of a leak faucet is to us.
I hope you’re well today. I guess that’s. it for me for today. Take care and I’ll talk with you soon.
From the Far Side of '70 