Be Not Childish But Be Ye Childlike
By Abraham Israel
Once I was walking through the street in the evening to have a time of exercise for my body. While going I saw a beautiful little child walking towards me holding his daddy's hand. I loved the way his smooth silky hair was moving in the evening breeze and I touched it with my hand, the little fellow saw me and immediately called his daddy to show him that I had touched his hair. I smiled at him and his daddy to walk past them in a friendly way.
That day God taught me a wonderful lesson that I can never forget. He told me, 'This is the way I expect all my children to be.' I began to realize that this child when he realized that I as a stranger had touched his head, he immediately told it to his dad and did not try to handle the situation by himself. The child trusted his dad as the one who had the ability to protect him from a stranger and its succeeding danger. How much more we should take all our little, big and our mountain sized problems to God the moment it comes against us and expect Him to solve it all and not fear or worry about it. This is what it is to be childlike in our faith.
The moment a temptation comes to us or a demonic assault happens against us in our mind that we cannot overcome, immediately we should take the information to God and submit it to Him as a petition that only He is able to answer. When God sees that we trust him and his ability to answer us, he will be joyful to intervene in to our situation and will deliver us as soon as possible.
At other times when we do not see a immediate answer from God for our problems, we need to trust God that He is working behind the scenes even though we cannot see any change in our situation at that point of time. God works in ways we cannot see and understand with our natural and logical mind. But we know that God is working all things behind the scenes, whether it is good or bad to finally bring out the good purpose of His will to get fulfilled in our lives when we love God and trust Him like a child (Rom 8:28). A childish faith will make people to rejoice when something good happens in their lives and feel bad, depressed, fret, fume, gripe and become goofy to ask God why all these things should only happen to them. A person who does not ask Himself why all good blessings should come to him when it comes, have no rights to ask God why bad things happen to him when it happens by God's sovereign design. In other words, a person who asks himself why God's blessing should come to him alone will have already understood that because he chose to walk in the ways and the will of God, God in His mercies and grace have chosen to bless his life abundantly because of a good attitude that he had maintained by faith during the trial that has come in his life.
I have once been like this in my young age of around seven to twenty, to rejoice when God gives good things when I pray by faith and fume to doubt God when God allowed bad things to happen in spite of my so-called prayer of faith. The spiritual life that I lived at that time was childish and more like a roller coaster ride. I did not grown in faith much until God spoke to me to trust Him at all times which includes good times and bad times over which God is in control for my spiritual good. During a crisis in my early twenties God spoke this to me, from that time on I began to embrace trials and go through it joyfully day after day with the faith that God is working for my good and that His purpose and His will for my life will be fulfilled through all things that happen in my life whether good or bad. I promise you, today I stand as a testimony to say how greatly I have been blessed in my life even as I am writing this to you.
God wants us not just to be His child and be childish in our faith, but to be great as His sons with a childlike trust in Him. Once when the disciples who followed Jesus had this question and asked Jesus, "Who ... is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" "2 Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, 3 and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me." (Matt 18:2-5). This clearly shows that God responds more and more to us as we gown in our childlike trust towards Him. This faith cannot come in a day by impartation, but as we choose to trust God like a child and reject our soul feeling of the flesh day by day, we learn to grow from "[one level of] faith to [another level of] faith" (Rom 1:17). When we die to our self-life and live by faith in the word of God, we are truly accepted by God as the humble sons of God.
When God allows us to go through trials, we must accept it willingly with the right attitude to think like, 'It is Good that God allowed this hardship in my life to purify my soul from the sin of self, world and the devil's seed of sin nature that still works inside me.' When we are thinking like this we will be automatically positioned to receive great blessings in our life which will last for eternity ahead. Finally our faith will show itself to the world by working out the good works that God has pre-planned for us to walk in through a motivation of love towards the name of Jesus and toward his people who have child-like trust in Him like our self (Eph 2:10; Gal 5:6). So as a result of our partnership with God through faith, He works with His love through us and shows Himself to the people of God and to the world. What a privilege to trust him like a child and show the glory of our Heavenly Father to the whole world around us!
Pray this prayer with me : "Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for clearly teaching me and challenging me to start to live with a childlike faith. Sorry that I have been very childish in my past life, to be happy when good things happened to me and sad when bad things happened to me, not realizing that you have been working behind the scenes to work it all together for my good. Help me rise up higher and higher in my faith life and in my trust towards you. I know that through all the trials, you are holding my hand and are willing to lead me beside the still waters of your supernatural peace when I start to give all my day today problems to you daily. Help me to submit my petitions of request and exchange my burdens of chaotic proportions for your serene peace that passes all understanding which will guard my heart with your childlike faith. Thank you that I will become great in the kingdom of God and that I will be transformed to walk just as you walked on earth to be a blessing to many around me and to the whole world in the coming days. In Jesus name I pray. Amen and Amen!"
"Faith walks simply, childlike, between the darkness of human life and the hope of what is to come." — Catherine de Hueck Doherty
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