Childlike Faith

I asked for a pony for Christmas at least five years in a row! We always opened gifts on Christmas Eve and there were a lot of fun and exciting presents, but never a pony. I did get horse riding lessons, plastic toy horses, cowgirl hats, books about horses, just no actual live pony. I don't remember being disappointed, I just eventually stopped asking.

Believers are called to have faith like a child. We are told to trust in the Lord with our whole heart, to ask and keep on asking, to believe that God has our best in mind at all times.

Unlike Christmas lists, childlike faith is one of the hardest parts of the Christian life. We are asked to hold in tension two very different realities. On one hand, we are called to grow, to become strong, mature believers who are confidently rooted and secure in our faith. While simultaneously, we are challenged to submit, to be dependent children who call out to our Daddy for help and provision in times of fear and need.

We've all experienced times when that tension seems too much. Perhaps the strong, grown-up, control freak part of us decides we know how things should go. Like children, we ask, plead, even beg for the thing we believe we most need: healing, justice, or specific provision. But the answer is a resounding no!

Does childlike faith mean we throw a royal fit and try to change God's mind?

Does mature faith deny the heartache, fear and pain with a pithy phrase?

Do we just keep asking, like children with Santa, stubbornly stuck in our ways?

Do we turn and walk away when what we believe doesn't feel true?

Team Smith received a giant "no" this week. After more than a decade of praying for provision in the form of a pension related to Shawn's accident, the judge ruled he wasn't disabled enough to receive one. We're using the recourse available and filing an appeal, but still I hear my heart cry, "This isn't how it was supposed to be! Don't you hear our hearts and see our needs? How can you say no to providing for us?"

I've had to stop and ask myself the ultimate question: do I believe what I say I believe?

If God is my provider, He is always my provider, even when I feel neglected.

If God is just, He is always just, even when I feel wronged.

If God is love, I am always loved, even when I feel abandoned.

There are times it is easier to talk about being a believer than to actually live it out. Words like trust and faith roll off our tongues like they are nothing, but living them out in real life is a different story.

Wholehearted trust in the Lord and faith that He is who He says He is, no matter what, are the very things Jesus came to model for us. We needed an example for this part of the journey.

Jesus was told no in the garden of Gethsemane. He begged, more than once, for a different way. He was desperate for relief from the pain He knew was ahead, but it was not to be. Instead, he surrendered His will to the Father's and walked straight into his suffering.

Maybe that is the key to this question of how to live out childlike faith ... ask and surrender.

Pour out your heart. Boldly ask. Plead more than once.

But if the answer is no, stop asking. Surrender your will to the One who knows best.

Then, lift up your head and walk forward in resolute faith and trust, not because it is easy but because you know what is true.

Your Father is with you.

He is in control and He is Enough!

#childlikefaith

#heisenough