Stop Acting Your Age — By the Rev. Ted Schroeder
The best way to live your faith just might require a childlike approach.

As responsible adults, most of us spend a lot of time teaching and instructing children. Phrases like “Don’t slouch!” “Eat your peas!” and “Stand still!” roll quickly from our tongues. Unfortunately, we can become so busy with guiding and shaping children, we forget that teaching is one of those two-way streets. We’re learning as much from them as they’re learning from us.

There’s a story about a dust bowl community that gathered, at the mayor’s request, on the courthouse lawn to pray for rain. Several clergy showed up, assuming they would be asked to do the praying. Most of those who came were townspeople. They had been measuring the time since the last rain in months instead of days, and they were tired of it. One little girl, it is said, interrupted the praying when she arrived late. She had gone back home to get an umbrella. No one else had thought to bring one.

Put that story alongside the one in the Bible about the boy at the feeding of the five thousand (John 6:1–14). When the disciples figured out they wouldn’t be able to feed all the people who had gathered to hear Jesus, they said, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?”

The optimistic little girl expected rain, but I wonder what that boy expected when he gave up his lunch to the disciples. Was he a little angry? Just as no adult thought to bring an umbrella to the courthouse lawn, no one thought to bring a lunch to Jesus’ gathering, either. The boy certainly had a right to keep his lunch. And yet he gave.

Foolish? Maybe.
Foolhardy? Perhaps.
Naive? To be sure.

But what can one expect from a child? Children don’t know how to be practical—how to calculate the probability of success. They don’t know how to be realistic and hide their umbrella (to avoid scorn) or their lunch (to avoid having to give it up).

As we get older, we learn. We learn to hedge our bets, to expect what is likely, to protect what is ours. After all, how can you really know what will happen if you pray for rain and give your lunch away? You might just end up thirstier and hungrier than before. Certainly that’s a realistic, entirely adult assessment. You have to be a little foolish, a little childlike, to expect that a prayer might get you all wet and that a lunch could turn into a miracle.

Perhaps it was to practical adult disciples like us that Jesus said, “. . . whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it” (Mark 10:15).

Well, children, are we ready to learn?

Let’s revive our child’s heart–our childlike faith—as we run to fetch our umbrellas and give our lunches away.

The Rev. Ted Schroeder is a Thrivent Financial member and regular contributor to Thrivent magazine.

Jesus said, “. . . whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it” (Mark 10:15).