“And [Jesus] said: 'Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.'” Matthew 18:3 Tell children anything and they’ll believe you. I work with kids, so I have a lot of experience with this. I once told a kid that I was deathly allergic to Cheez-Its even though he had seen me eat Cheez-Its a couple weeks prior. He believed me. Another time, I made up a story about a student in Canada who was deathly allergic to some food and didn’t know it until she ate it and almost died (as a way to explain why we don’t give food to kids without asking their parents about allergies first, even when they tell us they know they're not allergic to anything). She believed me. The interesting thing in every scenario I’ve experienced is this: kids don’t usually question you. Yes, there are the rare rebellious kids who know you’re joking and keep pestering you until you give in, but for the most part, kids go along with whatever you say. They don’t ask, “Can you cite your sources or direct me to some scholarly article which proves your point?” or “Can you backup your position with outside evidence?” Even if they disagree with me—even for the kid who knew I ate Cheez-Its in front of him before, he swore he saw me eat Cheez-Its—they still believe. When did that change? When did we go from believing our friends or family when they told us something exciting or depressing to thinking, “This might not be true.”? When did we go from saying, “Woah! You did that? So cool!” to “No way. Prove it.”? One of the patterns of this world is unbelief. We are naturally distrusting, questioning, uncertain beings. We hear things and we assume them to be false until proven true. We demand reasoning, evidence, explanations. We demand to be compelled to believe in something or to agree with something. We are stubborn-minded people. This isn’t always a bad thing. When someone tells you that you’re going to die faster if you keep using canola oil instead of olive oil, you might not want to take that at face value. Or when someone tells you that carrots improve your eyesight, or eating spinach enhances your muscles tenfold in seconds. There are a lot of things in this life that should be approached with a questioning eye. Boring business example—I’m currently learning about auditing, which is the process of assessing a company’s financial statements to assure the public that they are stated accurately and are not flubbed or fraudulent. When an accountant tells an auditor, “Yeah, we sold X amount of product and earned Y amount of money,” the auditor should not just say, “Okay cool, I believe you.” It is their job to showcase professional skepticism in order to detect any misstatements. But when it comes to God, why are we still so skeptical? When God does things we don’t agree with, we either rationalize Him out of it or choose not to believe it happened. When God says things we don’t want to be true, again, we rationalize or we refuse. Could an all-powerful God have stepped down from heaven and ended the Holocaust before it got as severe as it did? Of course. Did He? No. Does that make Him less Just, Perfect, or Good? No. There are a lot of realities in this life that we don’t like, but we have to accept them anyway. "Doesn’t that go against everything I’m taught?” you may ask. “If I believe in everything blindly, how am I supposed to know if it’s true or if I’m just being lied to?” Good questions. In many instances in life, we should question what is true. I’ve already listed some examples. But when it comes to God, who is Truth, we cannot expect to understand. Isn’t that what childlike faith is? When you think of the believing nature of child, you think of how gullible they are because they’ll believe anything you say. That’s what God is asking of us. It’s not that difficult to see. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9 “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them? For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” Romans 11:33-36 We need to stop trying to figure out God. We need to stop tracing his paths and we definitely need to stop telling Him what we think He should be doing. Yes, it’s good to come before God in prayer and ask for healing, peace, etc. But we cannot say to God, “You’re doing this wrong. If you really want to be a good God, follow my advice.” We are not His counselors. Our thoughts are not His thoughts. We have not given to Him so that He owes us anything. Everything we have is already His. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. "But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?” Romans 9:20a
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AuthorFighting complacency and advocating change in myself for the world around me. Posts by Date
February 2019
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