Child Like In Jesus

Amen I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:3

For 12 years I lived amongst the plain people called the Mennonites. I spent much time with one of the ministers and his family. They were up in age, had 12 children, and at least one of the children were married. One day, one of his youngest grandsons and his mother dropped in for a visit. The two of them walked over after spending the day canning and working out in their garden, and as soon as they arrived, the ministers grandson showed him something he had found along the way.

It was a flat rock about the size of an Oreo cookie, and he gave it to him to hold in his hand. the old minister looked at it, and turned it over. It was somewhat heart shaped. Someone had painted a face on it with red and blue colors, eyes, a nose, a smiling mouth. The grandfather smiled, and opened his mouth to offer his explanation of where this rock had come from when his grandson had found it on the pavement near the kindergarten. But his little grandson broke into his grandfathers words before he had a chance to get them out.

"God dropped it down for me, Grandpa. It's a present for me from God."”

When I heard him tell his grandfather this, I was convicted in a moment. So much for the obvious explanation His grandfather was going to give him. We adult types are good at getting things all figured out.

His grandson looked at him and nodded as his grandfather handed his rock back to him. "I believe in Him, Grandpa.".

His grand father nodded, and then he sang a little song that I use to hear many times over the years. The words goes like this:

"Praise the Name of Jesus, Praise the name of Jesus

He's my Rock, He's my fortress,

He's my deliverer, in whom I will trust

Praise the Name of Jesus"

I believe in Him as well. God sent down a Rock for me, just like he did for that little boy. And I pray that till my dying day and beyond, He will preserve in me that same childlike sense of wonder. and let me enter the kingdom of God as a little child.

And I pray that you too, as you grow in the love of Christ, will never lose a child's trusting heart, and sense of wonder.

For, this God that you believe in, and I believe in, is a God of wonder. His very name is Wonder-ful (Isaias/Isaiah 9:6). And so this whole universe He created, the things unseen and seen, things visible and things invisible, is a universe full of wonder. "Who doth things great and incomprehensible, and wonderful, of which there is no number." (Job 9.10).

And of all those wonders, the purpose of God in it all: the wonder of wonders: His purpose in man, that eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. Oh, the wonder of it all!