Tuesday August 12th: Childlike Trust

He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 18:1-5,10,12-14

Jesus does not say “be childish,” but “become like children.” And there is a world of difference. What is it about a child that Jesus wants us to imitate?

I think about our recent holiday with the younger two of our grandchildren. They are trusting. They don’t carry the burdens of pride or the illusion of self-sufficiency. They know how to ask for help. They forgive quickly, live in the moment, and delight in small things. Most of all, they know how to receive love and to give it freely.

Jesus is calling us to that kind of humility and openness—to let go of our ego, our need to control, our obsession with being important or powerful.

In a world that tells us to take charge, and build bigger barns, Jesus invites us into simplicity, into dependence on God, into childlike trust.