Featured Story

Like a Little Child
November 2002

Written by Robert Benson 

"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."  Mark 10:13-16

Throughout Scripture, we see that children occupy a special place in God's heart, and because of their need and vulnerability, we are often directed to care for them. But here, Jesus also says that in some way we must become like little children in order to enter the kingdom of God. In the following article, I would like to focus on three key areas in which we need to recapture our childlikeness, both to enter into the kingdom of God and to carry out the work of the kingdom. Then at the end, we will consider the implications of this teaching for Arms of Love.

First, to enter into the kingdom of God, we cannot be concerned with status or position.

Children have little awareness or concern regarding their social or economic status. Once a partner in a major law firm, I had to leave the firm on account of a downturn in the economy. My wife and I decided to put our belongings in storage and move into a small apartment while I looked for a new job. Each of our three young children got to select one box of toys to bring with them.

And do you know what? I found out that it did not matter to our children whether daddy was a partner in a high-powered law firm or unemployed. It did not matter whether we lived in a spacious house or a small apartment. It did not matter whether they each had their own nicely furnished rooms or slept on the floor in the same room together. They were just as happy and just as content. Their status in the world did not matter to them. Children do not care how other people see them: and if you question that, let a 3-year-old get herself dressed in the morning.

But the longer we live, the more we realize that with status and position comes respect, power, authority, and influence in the world, so we begin to seek after those things. Along the way, we also learn that we attain status and position based on the way other people perceive us. So in our quest to increase in status, we become preoccupied with how we appear to the world around us. Along the way, we become less open and genuine, hiding parts of ourselves that we think others would disapprove of, while emphasizing parts of ourselves that we think others want to see.

Matthew records that Jesus' teaching concerning children was prompted by the disciples' question, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" Jesus responded by taking a little child, who in Biblical times was of the lowest social status, and saying "unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Jesus' point was that the disciples could not enter into His kingdom unless they first gave up any concern over their personal status and position. Because we cannot enter into God's kingdom unless we are willing to be completely dependent upon God and willing to trust Him entirely with our lives and our futures … and such dependency and trust in a relationship, which leads to an unreserved willingness to follow God's call and direction in our lives, is not possible if we are focused on our own status and our personal advancement.

Lack of concern over our status is also important for carrying out the work of the kingdom. This is illustrated by a story that is recounted by Mark as a separate incident in chapter 9:

"Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.' He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me." Mark 9:35-37

In this illustration, Jesus says we must care for those who are the very least among us, represented by a little child, and that we must serve those who are of the lowest status with the same dedication as if we were serving Jesus Himself. Jesus makes the same point in his Matthew 25 narrative concerning the final judgment, when he will say to those on His right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. … [because] whatever you did for one of the least of these … you did for me."

One of the strongest themes in Jesus' teaching is that being part of His kingdom involves ministry to those who are in need. When we enter into His kingdom realm, we become the beneficiaries of God's compassion, mercy, and justice, and we must in turn demonstrate that same compassion and mercy to others and do justice on their behalf. To be great in His kingdom, Jesus said we must become "the servant of all," which Jesus illustrated by washing His disciples' feet. Jesus provided the ultimate example for us when, despite being God, he "made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!" Phil. 2:7-8. And when He set the greatest example in history of giving up status and position, how did Jesus do it? He became a little child, born to a carpenter and placed in an animal's feeding trough in a cave.

We cannot engage in the work of the kingdom unless we humble ourselves, as Jesus did, and set aside our personal ambitions, our claims to status, and our preoccupation with how the world views us. Ministry to the homeless, drug addicts, prostitutes, street children, and others of low status means more than writing a check or handing them some food. The only way we can touch people's lives with God's love is if we associate with them and build relationship with them, becoming their friends as Jesus did. Jesus said, "When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind." It is one thing to hand a homeless person a sandwich, it is quite another to have dinner with them. Do you want to be like Jesus? Jesus was called "a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners." Are you prepared to receive the same label? We will never invest ourselves in that way with such people if we are the least bit concerned about status and how we appear to others.

As we enter into this type of humility, acting without concern for our status or position, and without concern for how others view us, we learn to live our lives before the eyes of God and no one else. God's opinion is the only one that counts. What we are before God, that is what we are - nothing more, and nothing less - and we must live accordingly. When we do so, we enter into a life without pose or pretense, but a life full of humility, openness, and authenticity.

Second, to enter into the kingdom of God, we must become completely dependent upon God.

Little children have no difficulty being completely dependent upon their parents for their provision. No matter what children need - if they are hungry or thirsty, if they need help going to the toilet, if their shoes are feeling too small, if their ball is stuck on the roof - who will they go to first, if they are anywhere nearby: mom or dad. The picture is one of complete dependency. Their only experience is one in which their parents have been faithful in providing for their needs. Dependency is natural in the context of such faithfulness.

But the longer we live, the more we realize that others are not always faithful and dependable. Other people cannot be relied upon; they let us down time and again. In fact, we learn that most people will ultimately act out of their own self-interest, without any thought or concern for our needs. And so we develop a sense of self-reliance; we focus on taking care of ourselves and becoming completely self-sufficient and independent.

But when Jesus sent out his disciples in Matthew 10, to commence their kingdom mission of preaching the gospel and healing the sick, he instructed them, "Do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts; take no bag for the journey, or extra tunic, or sandals or a staff." The disciples were to travel completely unencumbered, relying not on supplies that they were bringing with them, but solely on the hospitality of others and on God's providence. For them to start on their journey, they had to be totally committed to the cause and completely dependent upon God for their provision.

Later in the same discourse, in Matthew 10 verse 40, Jesus says to His disciples, "He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me." The language parallels Jesus' words to the disciples concerning children, "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me." And so we find a second parallel between Jesus' disciples and little children: we must have a childlike dependency upon God for all that we need.

In order to enter into God's kingdom, we must be willing to give up everything and become completely dependent upon Him. We cannot enter into God's kingdom unless we first recognize our complete inability to accomplish anything in furtherance of our own salvation. From His death on the cross on our behalf, to the gift of faith that He freely gives to those willing to receive it, we are completely dependent upon God for our salvation.

The importance of having a childlike dependency on God is at the heart of Jesus' words, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." Luke 6:20. Likewise, in James 2:5, "God has chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him." The poor are blessed to the extent that their poverty has led them to place their confidence in God for everything they need, physically and spiritually. Poverty itself does not confer spiritual blessing, but it can be a blessing if it leads to humility and dependence upon God - because it is the kind of humility and dependence that we all need to enter into His kingdom.

But complete dependency upon God is not just necessary for entering into the kingdom, it is just as important for performing the work of the kingdom. Jesus illustrated this when He sent out His disciples with the instruction not to bring any provision with them. We cannot depend upon our own resources in ministering to others because those resources will quickly run out. We can only have complete freedom in responding to God's call on our lives if we are completely dependent upon Him. We must be dependent upon God for our resources, for our strength, for our energy, for our passion, for our direction. Kingdom mission requires confidence that if we respond to His call, He will lead and He will provide for our needs. Otherwise, our correct perception of our own limitations will limit what we set out to do, and thereby limit what God accomplishes through us.

Third, to enter into the kingdom of God, we must be willing to trust God completely with our lives and our futures.

I will never forget some of my children's simple prayers while I was unemployed. The closing words of my three-year-old's prayer one evening was representative of those times: "… and God, please help daddy find a job, so he won't be sad any more. Amen."

What an indictment! At once, my own lack of trust in God was exposed and my daughter's trust was revealed. She had no worry that she would not be provided for. She was more concerned about me, because she perceived that I was sad, and she could not understand why. It was her trust that was being revealed - and I was falling woefully short by comparison. And so my children helped me realize that God was bringing me through a time of need so that I would move into deeper levels of trust in my own life.

Have you ever tried to break a promise to a child? Have you ever promised young children a trip to the park or some other fun thing, and then tried to back out of your commitment? No explanation is sufficient for children. In their minds, when you promise something, there is a 100% certainty that you are going to do it. The mere thought that you won't follow through is so far beyond their imagination that their first reaction is one of stunned silence and shock, only later followed by the inevitable river of tears. In my case, at least, that is usually when I feel so horrible that I find some way to make good on my promise.

But as we grow older, the more we experience people breaking their promises to us and failing in their commitments. When someone promises to do something, we find it wise to have a back-up plan in case they don't follow through. We become cynical, and we may even decide that no one can be trusted.

But for us to enter into the kingdom of God, we must be able to have complete trust and confidence in God's promises to us. Such trust is part of the faith that God offers as a gift to those who are willing to receive it. To enter into His kingdom, we must have a childlike trust, rooted in our hearts, that God will keep His promises to forgive us, to renew us, to redeem us, and to bring us into His kingdom on account of our faith in Christ. We must trust Him with our souls, our lives, and our eternal future. And day-by-day, we must have a heart-felt faith and confidence that God will keep his promises to provide for our needs and work everything together for good. The result of such trust is an ability to persevere with confidence and joy through any circumstance - whether unemployment, loss of finances, a divorce, the loss of a loved one, rejection by others, even physical or sexual abuse. Why? Because we know the One who loves us, we know that our lives are in His hands, and we know the eternal outcome in advance.

As with humility and dependence, trust is just as necessary to the work of the kingdom as it is to entering the kingdom. The progression of Jesus' teaching in Luke 12 is instructive in this regard. Jesus starts in verse 16 by telling the story of a rich man who built bigger barns in order to store all of his goods, saying to himself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." But God answers him, "`You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?" Jesus concludes the story by cautioning, "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God." It is a picture of how a man behaves when he does not trust God, and his life ends in futility.

Jesus follows this parable by telling us "do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear." Jesus asks us to consider how God cares for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. Jesus then argues that if God provides for the birds and the flowers, how much more will God care for us, given that we are so much more valuable to Him! So Jesus says, "do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well."

Having disposed of our need to worry about our provision, Jesus continues with His progression of thought in verses 32-34: "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys." Our trust in God and lack of worry gives us the freedom to pursue that which Jesus calls us to: a radical life of pouring out our resources to care for others in Jesus' name. In doing this we obtain real security, because we are using our resources to advance the kingdom of God, which has eternal value and gives our present lives eternal meaning.

Jesus concludes His discourse with the words, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." The heart that is with God will have a genuine trust in God's promises, and that will lead to a life of abandonment to God's kingdom purposes. In the words of St. Francis of Assisi, "let us desire nothing else, let us wish for nothing else, let nothing else please us and cause us delight except our Creator and Redeemer and Savior."

Summary

So to summarize, Jesus teaches us that to enter into the kingdom of God, we must adopt certain childlike qualities: lack of concern for status and position, openness, authenticity, dependency, and trust. The same qualities are equally necessary to carry out the work of the kingdom. The qualities are childlike, because little children start out with such qualities, and it is our experience in this world that causes us to lose them. But God loves us as a father loves his little children … and so in His sovereignty, within His eternal plan, He intended that we must recapture these childlike qualities in order to receive His grace and enter into His kingdom, so that through it all, we begin to understand what it means to be the children of God.

Arms of Love implications

At first, we might think that a child in desperate circumstances would be ready to receive the good news of the gospel and be anxious to change her life. But consider the stories of the children we receive through Arms of Love. After suffering from years of homelessness or abuse, moving from place to place trying to find safety and security, these children long ago lost the childlike qualities discussed above.

Do you think these children are open and genuine, or do you think that to protect themselves they have built up walls around their hearts, a fortress within which no one is allowed? Do you think these children have a willingness to be dependent upon others, or will they insist on being self-reliant and independent because that has been their means of survival? Do you think these children have a willingness to trust, when most of the adults in their lives have abused them or let them down? With all the children we receive through Arms of Love … their childlikeness has been stolen from them.

Sue Leak, who directs our ministry in Mexico, writes, "The children don't really need the physical side of things, they want someone to care and to be committed to them. They want someone to take the time to say through their actions, 'you're worth it.' A lot of kids don't believe that you can love them just for who they are. They don't see themselves as worthy of having something good happen in their lives."

We have found that to reach abandoned and abused children, such as street children and child prostitutes, our words must be followed by real commitment. We must be able to bring them to a place of safety, away from the life of the streets and prostitution, a place where we can care for them, enter into relationship with them, and demonstrate God's love toward them. We have to slowly and patiently bring them to a point where they can recapture their childlike qualities, a place where they are willing to open their hearts again, willing to become vulnerable again, willing to become dependent again, and willing to trust again. And when we do this, we create the opportunity for the kingdom of God to break into their lives, forever changing the direction of their lives and giving them an eternal hope in Jesus Christ.