Like a Child

I've been thinking about turning 30 because my birthday is in a few days. Every time I have a birthday I think about how I viewed my new age when I was younger, and I never seem to fit the mold for my new age that I had developed in my mind in middle school.

I'm definitely not as mature as a 30 year old should be. I still choose to jump in puddles, play in the mud, throw rocks or sticks at any target I can find while I walk through the woods, and still have a desire to try walking on my hands every once in a while.

I hate wearing ties and suits, don't find any joy in going to Starbucks, try to avoid spending money, and still am not exactly sure what I want to be when I grow up.

I remember in 2nd or 3rd grade, my friend from school and I had been hanging out and witnessed some adults do something that we both thought was really strange and adultish. We decided adults were really boring, at which point I promised him I was going to have fun and be slightly childish my entire life.

Well, I'm sure that the expectations of life and the requirements of starting a family have forced me to become a little more adultish than I had desired at that point in life, but I still hold on to my desire to not forget to have the innocent fun of a child.

In Matthew 18, Jesus tells the disciples "Truly I tell you, unless you change, and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven."

Most children start out humble. They have to rely on someone else to take care of them. They have to rely on someone else to teach them how to do things and how to read and write. It's hard for them to become prideful, because they have and know nothing on their own. Jesus would love for us to remain in this humility in our relationship with Him. If we need something, we need to ask Him. If we want something, we need to tell Him. Adults think they can do things on their own. It's adults that get the pride that think they can figure something out without asking questions or getting help from someone else. We need to be like little children and continue to seek God for the little things and the big things.

Most children don't care what other people think about them. They don't even realize that other people might be judging them! If I want to wear my batman costume to school... I'm going to bring my batmobile and make engine noises with it too! At what point do we decide that we need to keep certain desires inside and certain thoughts quiet in order to give people a good impression of who we are? Live every day knowing that you're God's child, and that He's a greater Father than anyone else has. We don't need to win the approval of man, but we want to continue to seek after the love and relationship of Christ. In the end, our joy is going to come from how well our relationship with God is doing... not how the people at the grocery store think our clothes coordinated this morning.