Are We Like Unto A Child???

     Recently, my daughter shared a video of my just turned two year old grandbaby.   Like a proud Grammy, let me say, it was adorably priceless.   Like a child of God, let this old lady declare, it was a pictorial parable.

     Zachariah, holding sippy cup in hand, had discovered new challenge.   Carefully, he placed a cheese-it on the sippy cup, right in front of the sippy spout.   Next, he opened wide his mouth and bringing the sippy up to his far reaching jaws, he finagled the cheese-it over the spout mountain and into his mouth.   Completely delighted at the challenge having been surmounted, little man giggled and repeated his conquered feat.  

     Sheer delight and deep enlightenment were both shared in Zachariah’s accomplishment.   In whimsical glee, he’s maneuvered climbing his first mountain.   This Grammy wore a joy filled smile as little man endeavored, and succeeded, in scaling his cheese-it mountain.   However, deep enlightenment, a short time later, enveloped the escapade.

     How do we, adults, tackle and surmount our mountains?   Do we wear our years of facing challenges like a child, with energy, optimism and wisdom; or do our years wear on us?   A child discovers a mountain with full steam ahead curiosity and wonder.   Too often, we, adults, retreat and succumb to defeat because the fire needed for blazing forward has long been doused by tears of “what’s the use, I’ll only fail, again”.  

     For a child, climbing mountains makes him strong and like his earthly daddy.   For too many adults, climbing mountains is considered a sad, unwanted and aging showcase of being unable to climb physical heights or measure up to the standards set by our heavenly Father.

     A child surmounts mountains by trying and believing.   A mountain of adults turn away from all challenge because they’ve lost confidence and trust that if God leads you to it, He will get you through it.

     Read, re-read and read again the warning of Matthew 18:3.   Then, stop looking in your man made mirror.  Seek, instead, the reflection of a child – a child of God, who has been promised when mountains are too hard to climb alone, the Holy Spirit’s wings are waiting to be climbed onto, and once on board, together all peaks can be surmounted.

     “Truly, I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter  the kingdom of heaven”. Matthew 18:3 (NIV)