Like A Child

And He said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven…”

I think we always tend to think we understand this statement, until the moment we realize that we don’t. Not really. I also think that our understanding of it can’t really be explained by one person to another. That’s because our understanding of it must come by the hand of God Himself. It must come from our own encounter with the living God— Jesus Christ—and His Spirit of truth Who reveals to us all inexpressible truths of His kingdom. 

As I grow in understanding of my Creator and Lord, I grow in understanding of just how much I thought I understood, but really didn’t. I am being shown, in grace-filled increments, how truly ignorant I really was and am. To say that it has been humbling would be a gross understatement. It has caused me agony of heart and it has tempted me to despair on many occasion, to which I have wept at the feet of my Savior, asking in genuine incredulity, “Who then can be saved?”

Brothers and sisters, if there is anything of eternal value that I may share with you at such a late hour in God’s plan for mankind it is this: become like a child in your trust in and longing for Him. Be willing to come down from the tower you have built with the bricks of your own understanding and humble yourself at the feet of your Maker, like a child on the lap of his father, seeking instruction from his lips with an unassuming and unguarded heart. 

“Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

(Matt 18:2-4) Jesus invited a little child to stand among them. “Truly I tell you,” He said, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

(Ps 131:1,2) My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty. I do not aspire to great things or matters too lofty for me. Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

(Ecco 1:18) For with much wisdom comes much sorrow, and as knowledge grows, grief increases.