What is Childlike Faith?

Many times I've heard people say we should have faith like a child. If I’m honest this statement and direction has never quite captured me. There were moments where it has logically made sense, but I just wasn’t really sure what it meant to emotionally live it out. I mean how can one be mature and also be like a child? This seems impossible, yet the Bible commands it so I know that somehow it is in fact possible.

This past week I went home for the holiday to be with my family. One of which was my four year old nephew. What I recognized this holiday was the difference in the way I responded to my sadness compared to the way he responded to his.

Upon my arrival at the airport to go back to Dallas, my nephew began to cry, repeatedly saying “I don’t want you to leave”. Sharing the entirety of his broken heart and desperation for me to stay. While I remained stoic wiping his tears, neglecting my own emotion, and leaving him with a laugh instead of my tears.

Cold hearted is the thought of any witness to the event.

My laugh was not the result of joy and my lack of tears did not signify my absence of heartbreak. Rather it exposed another layer to my deceptive and hardened heart.

Mentally I knew in the moment that I wanted to cry but emotionally and physically I just couldn’t. So in order to release the weight I laughed. Many of times in many of circumstances this has happened. Laughing amid hard conversations, laughing at death, and laughing at traumatic events and circumstances.

So why is this so? And what is the difference in our two responses?

As I’ve been in counseling I’ve become increasingly more aware that my laugh often is a mask and signal for my deeper unmet needs and emotions. A mask that quickly leads to my own downfall when unchecked.

“They close up their callous hearts, and their mouths speak with arrogance.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭17:10‬ ‭NIV‬‬

This is the Psalm and description of the kind of heart of the evil men who are seeking to kill David. Men who have long ago left their ties to emotion for a short, evil, and momentary release of pain. What scares me is my own recognition of similarity to the state of my heart to theirs.

Here again we land on pride and arrogance. A pride that callouses my heart to feelings and tells everyone around me that I am not phased and I am unmoved. A pride that leads my mind to confusion as the heartache fades to the background and the deception of being okay settles in. The deception that quickly turns to a life of impurity and idolization to obtain a quick fix and bandage on the gaping wound left by my unmet needs and emotions.

“So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did.”

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭3:7-9‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The thing with rebellion is that it is always met with deception and deception often doesn’t overtake one completely at first. It starts in one small area of life, such as the need to cry and the refusal to let it happen. Then it slowly creeps in to other thoughts and promptings of the Spirit. Conviction to keep a boundary with a significant other, the integrity to complete a task you committed to, and eventually to the life of faith in the one who sets us free. Inevitably blinding us and keeping our hearts unresponsive to the counsel of the Spirit. Unresponsive because we can no longer discern or trust what we sense or feel at all.

“And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭18:3-5‬ ‭NIV‬‬

There are many things my nephew does that I would not. I would not call my dad a poopy head because I did not get a quarter for a gum-ball machine. I would not desire to shoot my cousin in the face with a nerf gun because they shot my belly. I would not strip naked and run through the house after taking a shower or bath. I wouldn’t do these things because as I’ve aged, I’ve matured. As I mature I continue to learn how to wisely compose myself when I desire to do something or when things do not go the way I hope. Failing at times and picking myself back up to try again. Knowing that doing and saying whatever I want is not what God meant in calling us to have childlike faith.

So there are many things I would not do that my nephew gives himself free rein to do. But I have also found there are many things I wish I did that he seamlessly does without a second thought.

In purity my nephew wasn’t too prideful to admit his needs and express his emotion. His need for love, his need for family, his feeling of sadness, and his desire for me to stay. And as I write this I’m brought to tears praying he never loses that kind of faith in life. The kind of faith that doesn’t fear the outcome so he never shuts off his need for connection. The kind of faith that trusts that somehow someway his need will be met because he knows he is loved, he is seen, and he is worthy to ask and be heard. Praying that kind of faith leads him to remember he can always run back into the arms of our Father. Knowing he can feel and he can share, and by doing so will always be filled with a faith and hope that leads to a life of joy in his salvation.

The kind of faith I desire for myself.

The kind of faith of a child.