Be as a child
Matthew chapter 18 v 1–5
Over the last two weeks, we have contemplated Matthew chapter 18 verses 1 to 5. It begins with Jesus’s disciples asking him “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
I wondered what my question to Jesus would be as I listened to the question. My brain threw up questions such as “Was your birth really a virgin one?” “How do I know you are who you say you are?” But if there was a genuine question from me it was “What is the interaction of the world of spirits with us? Do angels exist to assist us? Do evil spirits exist that lead us to depravity?”
But he wasn’t answering my question he was answering the disciples’s question. He called a little child to him and said,
“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”
At that moment I became a child again and he called me. Life was living without much thought.
I recalled how on a holiday to Butlins in Ayr, Scotland I jumped at the chance to get on stage and sing a song about locking up the devil and throwing away the key. The critical voices had yet to get to me. Or how at 4 I would take my pup to the local dog show expecting it to get a prize. We didn’t get a prize but we did get our photo taken by the local paper.
Despite ‘The Troubles’ my childhood self seemed oblivious as the streets and the fields were my playground. If anything the armed Police and soldiers were part of the scene. I wasn’t aware of sin either in me or others. I was aware of difficulties between people but that also seemed to be part of the scenery rather than my world. My imagination was fully powered as I converted the coal shed into ‘My office’, ‘ A Ghost Train’ ‘Our secret clubhouse’
I accepted a God was watching over me and that he showed up on the planet as a man called Jesus. This Jesus was talked about as a celebrity. I assumed maybe one day I would bump into him. And now in my imagination, he has called me out of the crowd and he is telling the grow-ups they have to be like me if they are to get into his kingdom. I assume he is talking about doing what I do, I just live and if I need something I use my imagination to make it so.
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