Today we have a guest writer Diann Rivera. Diann graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary with a Masters in Religious Education. She is a wife, mom, grandma, and retired high school ESOL tutor.
“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” (1 Cor 13:11) Or did I? Sometimes we hang on to our childish ways not realizing it. And why is that bad? Jesus said we must come to Him as a child. (Matt 18:3) We are also called the children or sons of God at different times in the Bible.
(1 John 3:1, Romans 8:14, Galatians 3:26) God called His people the children of Israel. What does all this mean and why is it even important? Let’s check the Bible and see what God has to say about all of this.
First of all, we need to differentiate between childlike and childish. Both have to do with acting like a child in our speech and behavior able to be used somewhat interchangeably. But, childlike gives us the idea of innocent, trusting, and naïve while childish is usually the bad attributes of a child – immature, spiteful, or selfish. And yes, many adults DO retain childish behavior. Let’s be honest. We don’t usually like anything we do as adults to be called childish.
However, when you look at your life — how you act and talk — you have to really ask yourself; which am I? Truthfully, we all could be in both categories at any given time. Adults get excited about things like kids can or want things we shouldn’t want like ice cream for breakfast, things not we can’t really afford, revenge on someone who hurt us, things other people have, etc.
Think about this scenario. You’re in a rush to get to the store to pick up something for the party you’re running late for. The lights all turn red when you finally get to them after being cut off by another driver. Parking is hard with cars parked haphazardly in their spots, drivers going the wrong way down the aisles, and the large number of cars. People are slow and indecisive asking the cashier twenty questions when they get to the cash register. When you FINALLY reach her, the cashier is slow and trying to ask you another twenty questions about how you’re doing and your plans clearly NOT sensing your haste. To top it all off, the bag holding your groceries breaks spilling them on the ground just as you reach your car.
What is your attitude in these situations? Are you yelling at drivers? Being impatient with others in your countenance and attitudes? You DO know many people can tell how you feel by how you look at them? What do you exude?
While there can be justified frustration, irritation, and anger other people cause, how much is just our own bad planning, procrastination, or other choices causing many of our problems. Wouldn’t you say it’s childish to hold someone else responsible for problems caused by your own behavior? Please know I’m speaking to myself as much as anyone else, especially the procrastination part!
Let’s go back for a minute and think about what it means to be a child of God. He certainly would NOT want us to be childish here. To even become a child of God, we must have those qualities of trust and total dependence on God believing He will take care of our needs. Jesus says in Matthew 19:14, “…Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” The childlike wonder, innocence, love, dependence, and trust is what we need to fully be His. The Creator of the whole universe wants a relationship with us. Not a casual one but a close one – family!! This is a family with a perfect, holy, trustworthy, loving Father wanting us as His children.
He gave us right to be His child…if we believe in Him and accept Him as our God, our Father! (John 1:12-13) Just like our earthly parents have behavioral expectations of us, so does our Father God. What we call the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus telling us those expectations. Proverbs is FULL of them, as well as much of the Letters of Paul in the New Testament. The Old Testament gives us example after example of how life is when we follow God’s ways and when we choose not to! We just need to read the Bible He gave to us, a manual full of instructions.
Again, are we childlike or childish about reading His word. Are you one to read directions or feel you can just figure it out by yourself? Sometimes we childishly get aggravated because we don’t know what to do when we have a book that tells us a LOT we can do, but we don’t read the manual. Why? I don’t know! We also don’t talk to Him about our situation. Maybe with your earthly father you didn’t feel you could talk to him about things. This is not nor should never be an issue with our heavenly Father, He’s perfect!! Perfectly loving, just, merciful, gracious, etc.
He tells us if we seek Him with all our heart, He WILL be found. (Deut 4:29; Jeremiah 29:13). He will also answer us (Jeremiah 33:3). James 4:8 tells us “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” How amazing is it that the God of the universe, our Creator, wants a personal relationship with us? Not only that, He wants to adopt us and make us part of His family!
Sometimes we are more childish than childlike; but when we join the family of God, we are ALWAYS the Father’s child. Hopefully, regardless of the struggles and frustrations of life we are living through, we will grow more childlike in our actions and attitudes. If we continue to grow in our knowledge and love of the Father, we will!! Then as Paul says, we can “give up childish ways.”
If you are not in the family of God, have questions about being in this family, or don’t know if you are, please read our article “Do You Know God Personally?” .
Until the next time we see you here at CultivatingFaith.org, God Bless! #CultivatingFaithOrg