to be like a child…
I remember a hunting trip with my dad when I was a young and how excited I was to be hunting with him. As we made our way into the woods we ran across a copperhead reared back and ready to strike. As a normal child I was just following my dad looking for squirrels to jump out and wave at us. Suddenly my dad stops and holds his hand out and says, “don’t move and be quite” and pointed. As the little inquisitive idiot I was back then I asked, “Does it bite?”…my dad responded, “why don’t you stick your hand down there and find out.” so I started to reach down to touch the snake and my dad QUICKLY stopped me and gave me a quick, my son the idiot glare…you know in disbelief that I would be stupid enough to do that. Just an fyi…I got a lot of those growing up. I set there and watched my dad slowly get his gun into position and shoot the snake and it was gone. So I immediately started to walk again and yet again my dad had to stop me and tell me do not move. I could not understand why, the snake was gone! After what seemed like forever to me or in actuality a minute or two my dad said okay lets go. I asked him, “Why couldn’t we go after you shot it?” and he said, “I had to be sure I killed the snake and didn’t just wound it.” The shotgun blew the snake out of sight and if he had a bad shot, the snake could still be close by. He was looking for the body to ensure it was dead before proceeding.
Mark 10:13-16 says,
“People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.”
It was interesting to see how this experience in my life parallels in how my walk in Christ should be. At that age I still believed my dad was the greatest dad that walked the face of the earth and there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do. So when walking into the woods as a child I didn’t bother scanning the ground looking for snakes to avoid, paying attention to direction, what turns we made, where the sun was when we started, etc because I hadn’t been taught to and all I knew was my dad knew the woods like the back of his hand. So I followed blindly not knowing where we were going or the possible dangers around me…I just knew we were looking for squirrels.
When danger rared back, my dad told me to stop and I stopped because I was told to. When I saw the snake and he told me to reach my hand down and find out if it would bite, I did it without fear because I was with my dad and I had faith that my dad wouldn’t let anything harm me. After shooting the snake he still told me not to move when I was ready to go. I stayed still because I was told to. I didn’t move until he instructed me to do so…then he explained why we had to continue to stay still.
If I had not listened and kept walking towards the snake what could have happened? I could have been bit and that would have created all kinds of problems to overcome that could have been avoided if I would have listened and stopped like I was told to. Our goal of hunting would have been thwarted because the attention would have been turned towards my survival.
This is the childlike faith we have to have in our Heavenly Father! We should follow Him blindly wherever He leads and with all confidence that He will keep our paths straight, provide, protect, instruct, and teach us along the way. With our earthly fathers they make mistakes and as we mature we realized they are limited and not all knowing and all powerful…but our Heavenly Father is not capable of mistakes, He is all knowing and all powerful!
Without childlike faith it is impossible for us to be obedient to the commands and instructions of our Father. It will be impossible for His will to be done in our lives. The fruits we will bear will be a misrepresentation of Christ and no different than the fruit of this world!
John 14:15,21,
“If you love me, you will obey what I command.”
“Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”
