So I guarantee this is the first writing series I'm going to continue posting and possibly finish. Why would that happen when none of my other 'series' have made it past the ever-difficult 1st post? Mostly cause I already have about 5 of these written.
'Growing Young' is a series I began a few years ago, and is inspired by thoughts borrowed from Rich Mullins, who borrowed them from G. K. Chesterton, who likely borrowed them from someone I wish I had known myself. I hope you enjoy a few of my thoughts on what I believe is a central theme of our faith, God's love, and the two working in step together.
Matthew 19:13-14, Mark 10:15
Some years ago I heard Ken Gire, an author and speaker, give a talk on the love and mystery of God. The intimate setting provided for whole families to attend, so there was a large group of children congregated near the front, with the adults in their chairs a little ways back. Part of Ken’s talk that night was about not being afraid or embarrassed to ask God the things about Him we don’t understand. He then opened up the room to any such questions about God that anyone wanted to share.
A small hand quickly appeared from the cluster of children near the front. Ken acknowledged a young girl who, after a moment’s pause and consideration, asked, ‘How can God be three people and one person at the same time?’ Some chuckles could be heard from the back of the room, from adults probably thinking it cute for a child to ask a question they themselves had long considered unanswerable, and thus had stopped asking.
But Ken never heard or simply ignored their snickers, which quickly ceased when everyone noticed the complete focus and tender care with which he received her question. His eyes and ears were on her alone, and the rest of us responded in complete, near-reverent silence. I don’t remember what answer he gave, but I do remember that he answered her with such love and holy simplicity that he not only met her on her level, but drew the rest of us to a place where we began to feel young enough to come before God with the same simple faith as that young girl. By affirming her innocent, unadulterated desire to know her Father better, he provided the rest of us a very candid example of what Jesus meant in Matthew 19 when of children He said, ‘the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’
Children in their innocence can handle in ways most adults cannot the mystery of God. For children, it is enough that God is bigger than their understanding or control, and it is enough that He loves them. They carry in them a faith that stands simply-but-firmly upon the promise that “Jesus loves me, this I know.” As each of us grow older and out of our sin-fated innocence, our view of God becomes harder to accept without the filters of personal comfort, understanding, and any number of assurances that, like any idol, mistake our own likeness for that of God’s.
Fortunately, God has a different plan in mind. Through His Spirit, God is working to restore and grow that innocence we have lost, and growing us into someone who can see through His eyes instead of our own. He is growing us into someone who resembles His Son, and if it is true what Chesterton wrote, that ‘we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we,’ then we are in Him growing young.
This series entitled ‘Growing Young’ is dedicated on bringing light to God’s growing us younger in Him, so we might be young enough to see the world through His very young and innocent eyes, where the fantastic is still possible, dreams are still alive, and heaven isn’t an escape from this world, but a completion of the magic He set in motion, so very long ago.