Mark 10:13-16
Child-like Faith in Tragic Circumstances

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.

New International Version

This passage should carry the same "shock" value today as it did when Jesus spoke it. Then and now, most of us spend all our lives trying to be more mature, more responsible, and more knowledgeable. That was likely the motivation for the disciples as they herded children away from the busy Master, so He could attend to more important matters.

But Jesus confronted and contradicted this misconception as he eagerly welcomed children to him and taught those around that our knowledge and maturity doesn't count for much in the Kingdom of God. I have found it easier to accept this teaching when I think of how majestic, powerful, wise, and perfect God is, and how small, weak, ignorant, and imperfect I am in contrast. It is essential to our growth as Christians that we acknowledge that only God is qualified to be God. We face a constant temptation to try "helping" God with our wisdom, just as Peter tried to help Jesus avoid going to Jerusalem to face his enemies and die on the cross.

Recently, I learned more about this instruction from Jesus as I tried to cope with the tragic death of a father and husband in my church. By the time we are adults, we all have experienced the feelings of shock and dismay at a senseless death, and wondered how our God could allow such an event to take place. Most of us feel like that about the 140,000+ lives lost to the tsunami in December 2004, and many of us still feel like that about the September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. Still, the loss hits me harder when the death is where I am instead of somewhere else.

So how, God, can this young widow deal with this death, and how can she cope in the difficult years ahead as a single mother? In a way beyond my understanding, one of God's answers is "with faith like a child."

The innocence of a child is sorely tested in a tragedy, and many of us grow cold and "mature" when we face great difficulties, protecting ourselves so we can't be hurt the same way again. It seems to me God calls us to hurt as desperately as a child when we experience loss, clinging to our Father as we let the pain out, then allowing our Father to heal us. Rather than build our own defenses, we are to trust that God will be our defense and God will provide the ways to handle life.

We struggle to understand a tragedy, and develop theories of what could have gone wrong. The apocryphal literature in the Bible warns that circumstances will get worse before the Second Coming, but sometimes we yield to the temptation to figure out from the circumstances around us when that will be. We adults seem to feel comforted when we "understand," but God calls us to be like children and accept that there is a great deal we cannot possibly understand, and we must trust that God does understand.

The most unsettling part of a tragedy or natural disaster is the confirmation that we are not in control. Those who have gone through earthquakes describe the primal terror when what is supposed to be solidly underneath them is no longer so. We cling so tightly to the illusion of "normal life", wanting to count on things to happen as we expect them to happen, but when our illusions are broken so easily and so frequently, we seem to cling to them even tighter. But to cling to our façade of control is the opposite of clinging to God. A child recognizes they have no control, and depends on a parent when surprises come, and God calls us to do the same.

Nicodemus asked Jesus in John 3 if he, as a grown man, needed to crawl back into his mother's womb to be "born again." Our calling to live out a childlike faith, reversing decades of our "maturity", seems almost that difficult. Our Heavenly Father knows this struggle in our minds and hearts, and patiently works in us to make us new. God will see that work complete in us, so we can love with abandon as God loves, so we can cling to God for comfort when we are hurt, and so we can grow our dependence on and faith in God in every circumstance of our life, whether good or bad. I am not strong enough in my faith to live that way, but I am so grateful that God keeps working on me as my faith slowly grows.