Unless you become like little children...

Over the past few months, we have been working intensively with children, something way outside my comfort zone! The children are often so enthusiastic about hanging out at the library that they show up way before opening hours to wait for us. And sometimes, they even come to our home to ask exactly when we would go to the library!

Often, our children are happy just to be around us, and to help with whatever we’re doing. They follow us around the library, or peep over our shoulders as we work, never quite allowing us to get some private space. All in all, it’s a happy problem! 

As I spend time with them, the Father has been speaking to me about my relationship to Him.

Looking back, my way of honouring my parents then (and perhaps even now) was to be strong, mature and self-sufficient, so that they wouldn’t have to worry for me. And in some ways, I relate to my heavenly Father in a similar fashion. I try to honour Him by serving wholeheartedly, by persevering, by staying focused, by making sacrifices. While all those things are good, I sense that the Father is leading me to love Him in a new way, one in which the children are modeling for me.

I’m learning that the Father doesn’t want me to just be that mature, responsible kid who’s always trying to be strong, but He wants me to adore Him and be proud of His strength and wisdom and power, the same way a young child looks up to his father. I sense that in this new season, the Father wants me to simply enjoy His presence, and be fully assured that just because He is around, all things will work out.

And that’s what I’m learning to do now – simply go through the day remembering that my Father who is loving, strong and wise is always with me, and to look to Him to take care of everything for me. 

Also, as I interact with the many children who have been coming for our programmes, I’ve observed that they ask boldly and persistently for what they need – sometimes so aggressively that we have to discipline them and teach them to wait or share. Watching them has brought back memories of my own childhood.

I was an exceptionally mature child – perhaps more than was healthy for a young kid. Growing up, finances were tight at home, a fact I was very conscious of. Seeing how hard my parents worked to earn and save money, I didn’t want to add to their financial burden. When I was about 6 or 7, I wanted a skipping rope badly. I obviously didn’t have money of my own at that point, but I decided not to ask my parents for money, and kept quiet about it. There were many other things that I went without, simply because I didn’t want to ask my parents for money. Now, I often look back and wonder why I deprived myself of many worthy experiences, simply because I didn’t want to ask my parents.

Now, watching our children has reminded me of a central principle of the Kingdom of Heaven, one that I didn’t grow up practicing, which I now must learn in adulthood – the importance of asking for what we want.

So writes Laurie Beth Jones in “Teach Your Team to Fish”.

“The word ask and its derivatives appear more than three hundred times in scriptures. It was a primary, fundamental teaching of Jesus: ‘Ask, and ye shall receive.’ ‘Whatsoever you ask in My name, shall be given to you.’ ‘Would you ask your father for a fish and receive a stone?’”

Dallas Willard put it this way in “The Divine Conspiracy”:

“We teach our children to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ This is understood to be a matter of respect, and rightly so. But it is also a way of getting what we want or need. It is a way of getting that requires us to go through the freedom of the person asked, however. In the very act of asking, in the very nature of the request, we acknowledge that the other person can say no, and, “innocent as doves,” we accept that response.”

Asking is a kingdom principle. It is the means through which God provides for us. We are to ask for what we want and need boldly and confidently, and at the same time, rely on others humbly to grant us our request – not go through life expecting others to simply know what we need, or to demand it as a matter of right.