Most people like little kids; what’s not to like? OK, I’ll admit that they are kind of loud and that they make messes… but they are also funny, cute and innocent.
It’s the innocence that really does it isn’t it? They aren’t evil or wicked in any way; they may not have the polish required in certain social situations, but at the same time they also don’t have any social guile that requires polish to hide; they are simply innocent.
Jesus loved little children and used them as examples of what we need to be like:
And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
(Matthew 18:3-4)
Little children are innocent, and we too must become innocent by the blood of Jesus Christ. Little children are humble, they aren’t filled with swagger and pridefulness for they have no resume’. Little children don’t expect that they can control every social situation or run up credit cards to impress others with how much they have; they are just who and what they are…
Humility is a problem for most of us, can we get beyond self-centered thinking long enough to become as a little child? Benjamin Franklin discussed an interesting personal experiment in his Autobiography. He undertook a self-improvement program to eliminate all of his faults. He discovered that whenever he overcame his faults, he failed in the virtue of humility, for he was proud of himself!
Can we set aside pride and self-centered thinking?
I think we can, or at least we can do better… But we can only get past these things if our eyes are focused entirely on our relationship with Jesus Christ.
