Childlike Faith
Matthew 19:14
“Allow the children to come to me,” Jesus said. “Don’t forbid them, because the kingdom of heaven belongs to people like these children.”
Matthew 19:14 CEB
Jimmy is eleven years old now. His favorite thing to do is whatever we’ll let him do on his own—with no help from a grown up. But I’m happy to report that he’s not yet too old to be tucked into bed at night.
The routine is pretty simple. Jimmy climbs into bed, I turn off the lights, and he says a prayer aloud before we both say goodnight.
Now there’s no wrong way to pray, but Jimmy definitely does it right. He recounts his entire day, starting with breakfast, and thanks God for every good thing that happened to him. He talks to Jesus like you’d talk to a very special friend, saying things like, “we had a lot of fun today, Jesus—we hope you did too.”
And, in his own way, Jimmy will often summarize the gospel, “Pilate and his soldiers killed you, Jesus (and that wasn’t very nice), but you came back to life and we’re very glad about that.”
With gratitude for the day that’s passed and hope in the Lord for the day that’s coming, Jimmy drifts off into a deep, peaceful sleep. And, I say this without taking any credit for it whatsoever, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a better example of childlike faith… or any faith for that matter.
Lord God, thank you for giving all of us, young and old alike, a very special friend in Jesus. Amen.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. We plan to post a weekly devotional and a monthly topical reflection AND we want to be as interactive as possible. Please share your thoughts and questions—we’d be thrilled to hear from you!