As A Child

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3

Become like little children? Really?

Children are definitely cute and innocent, but that pretty much covers the positive qualities. On the negative side, however, the list is quite a bit lengthier: demanding, dependent, self-centered, messy, often smelly, expensive, and embarrassingly honest.

So why? WHY in the world would Jesus tell us to become like little children? WHY in the world would He want that? What was He thinking?! Well, He was a thirty-something year-old bachelor. Maybe He didn't really know what He was talking about when He said that. I mean, if we come to Him like little children, it's pretty much guaranteed to be messy. We're likely to be crabby, cranky. We might be downright angry. Prayer-ADD is hard to control on a good day. If we're not on top of it, if we don't have our list in front of us to focus our thoughts, we'll be all over the place.

A little later in Matthew (11:28), Jesus adds to the "come to Me" theme. He says that He wants, "all who are weary and heavy-laden." Does this Guy know what He's saying? He wants us when we're weary and heavy-laden AND as little children? You put those together, and we're likely to say exactly what we think without holding back.

Could it be . . . Is it possible that's exactly what He wants? To come to Him just as we are? In complete honesty? Without the social/political(and religious) correctness that governs our world? Is it even fathomable that He wants us to be real with Him? Really real? Come to Him in our ugliness, our sorrow, our pain?

I think that maybe that's exactly what He meant. So as you go about your holiday shopping, baking, decorating, and party-ing, may you find yourself going to Him as a little child, just as you are, in your weariness and with all your burdens because that's exactly who He loves. That's who He came to earth for all those many years ago.