Elize About Faith

When I was in my teens and questions around the Bible started rising, if my mum couldn’t answer something satisfactorily, she would simply say, “Jesus calls us to believe like children.” I never really understood that phrase at the time, but it became clearer to me as the years went on.

“And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.’ – Matthew 18:3–5 (NIV)

Recently this took me back to when I was around age 7. I can’t exactly remember the events that unfolded around it, but I still remember leaving church one Sunday morning with my family and when we got home I discussed something with my younger sibling that felt very important. My sibling agreed with me that we should do it. I still remember us sitting at the table in our kitchen, the floor was as blue as the sky, and as my mum entered the kitchen, I shyly looked at the floor and said “mum, can you help us with something?” I looked up at my sibling. “We want to give our hearts to Jesus, can you please help us to do it?” I don’t know how my mum felt in that moment but I imagine she must have felt joy and I remember her gladly praying with us. On the Monday we went to school telling everyone that we gave our hearts to Jesus.

I look at my my own children and see the joy they find in Jesus. They don’t feel the need to figure everything out before they believe—they just believe. Very much like they believe us as parents-we feed them, we clothe them, we hug them and hold their world together. When they hear that God loves them, they don’t question it or try to explain it away; they simply accept it, because they know that He loves them.

And when I hear my children say, with such authority, “I trust in God” and “I love Jesus,” it humbles me. I find myself learning from my own children how easy and simple it is to follow our Lord. Watching them, and witnessing their faith at such a young age, has helped me understand what it means to believe like a child. Children are humble and they trust in the Lord. They trust because they know they’re cared for.

This became apparent to me that as we grow up and get older, our childlike trust fades, our beliefs are pondered, doubt creeps in, we begin to believe in ourselves rather than God. We hold things at arm’s length when we don’t understand them. This is why Jesus reminds us to believe like children, to believe the things that we cannot see but unknowingly feel. To trust without wanting strong evidence and answers. To love Him without fail.

Somewhere along the way, trust becomes harder. We ask questions, we wonder, we try to know all the answers. But as my pastor once said to me, “God does not reveal everything to us for a reason.” Much like we don’t reveal everything to our own children, because they are not ready to know and handle the things that we know.

Watching my children love God without question has made me realise that believing like a child is not about ignorance or being naïve. It’s about humility. It’s about laying down the need to fully understand before fully trusting—because trust comes first. Children don’t love their parents because they’ve proven themselves worthy; they love them because trust comes before relationship.

Jesus wasn’t calling us to believe less, but to believe differently—to take the lowly position like children, to receive Him and to trust Him in the unknown.