Faith like a Child

 

The past two days have had a measure of great satisfaction and ridiculous frustration. First the frustration — definitely a first world problem. Normally my computers work in my car. It is an older vehicle but if my android phone is on, I have Wifi even traveling a couple hundred miles from home. This time, we took my hubby’s newer vehicle with all sorts of bells and whistles. His phone calls and texts come through the cars technical screen. BUT mine would not. I tried everything and wound up not able to read my devotions or enter them in my word processor, never mind get on the Internet to post them. The same held true as we drove home, I could play Solitaire but not read or write in the care — just like the day before.

However, it was an incredible day with my cousin. She is my age and the two of us have been lifelong friends. We put together the plans for our July family reunion. All the agenda, funding, and venue details, plus the caterer came so the food is figured out too. What fun we had doing it. Then we stayed in her home, watched sports on TV, looked at scrapbooks, and reminisced our childhood. It was a total blessing.

Tonight, at home, my tech stuff works just fine, just at it did at my cousins’s home. Today’s devotional is about the carefree life of a young child, which was already on my mind from the joyful visiting yesterday and talking about the things we did when we were little. The devotional compares that to the Christian life.

The chief characteristics of a young child is living by faith and in freedom from care. Back then, when we were little, our lives were one long trust from year’s end to year’s end. We trusted our parents, teachers, and sometimes even people utterly unworthy of trust.

Our parents took care of us, providing everything. We took no thought for anything, made few plans (just to go swimming at the mud hole) and yet life was incredibly good and much simpler than it is today. It is wonderful to remember the carefree life we had.

The life of faith is to be like that — a child in our Father’s house, our weary, burdened life transformed into one of blessedness and rest, leaving ourselves in His hands…

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6–7)

PRAY: Lord God, the reminiscing was both a great delight and a sort of sadness and we wished it was not so far from what we know now. Our days are often filled with busyness and responsibility, yet these verse become a wonderful reality when I slow down and remember that You want my childlike faith and trust. When it is in place, I can be that carefree youngster all over again. Belonging to You need not be frustrating at all, but a joyful satisfaction. Thank You for caring for us, Your children.

God knew . . .

God “chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4).

This week, God gave me a profound and very personal truth. I had a childhood illness without knowing that my parents were informed I would die in my teen years. I grew up and am still alive, yet this event deeply affected the way I reacted to life. My parents took excellent care of me, yet much time alone resulted in the sense of being abandoned feeling and no one wanted me. The story is long and in no way about neglect from others, only that I interpreted people that way, interpretation that was not correct yet seemed true to me.

When Jesus came, the Bible showed me salvation was about failure and sin. Wanting to succeed and be acceptable to other people, I tried to do God’s will and confessed every sin that He pointed out to me. Yet learning to listen to God, the most frequent thing He kept saying was, “I am here. I will never leave you or forsake you.”

This week, He showed me why I needed to hear that. He kept repeating it because He knew if He didn’t, my lingering childhood perception of life (which was a lie) would destroy me.

Today’s devotional is about the widespread problem of a spiritual identity crisis. The writer says many people fail to “resolve the fundamental issues of who we are, why we exist, and where we’re going. Sadly, most people will live and die without ever understanding God’s purpose for their lives.”

I know why I am a Christian, yet only this week did I realize a host of other things about myself, such as why I am introverted. I’d rather be alone than be rejected — totally the wrong reason, but God said He used that to give me a hunger for His Word and a desire to “pray without ceasing.” In other words, He used a negative idea for good, to establish purpose for my life.

Since Eden and that first sin, humans have a spiritual void that separates us from the One who created and loves us. Each person experiences that void in diverse ways, and sadly try to fill the emptiness with all sorts of things that don’t quite do it. I did. I felt acceptable when praised for certain achievements, yet that feeling of being rejected never left. I felt accepted by certain people, but every one of them eventually let me down. It is only when saved and “in Christ” that I began to have a true sense of who I am and why I am here.

For one thing, I’ve no doubt that God Himself personally selected me to be His child. Before the world began, God set His love upon me and planned that Jesus would die to release me from sin and from the power of the devil and his lies.

But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thessalonians 2:13–14)

This is eternal life, and this new life cannot be lost. Jesus said: “My Father, who has given (Elsie) to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch (her) out of the Father’s hand.” (John 10:29) I am not only “accepted in the beloved” but secure in His love and will never be forsaken, promises repeatedly made in His Word.

These truths I already knew, but seeing why I needed to know them has a deep and profound affect on me, as if light was shed in a dark place, dark but nameless and heavy — until now. My identity is “in Christ” and now I know a major reason why He has put me there; it was for the sin of unbelief and of believing a crippling lie. His redemption is a great act of gracious compassion and mercy for a lingering and self-centered lack of faith.

For the gospel and for all that, I am full of praise and worship with a deepened desire to glorify God. He keeps helping me know where I fit in His family and why. He also makes clear where I fit in this passage:

For consider your calling . . . not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:26–31)

For His grace and goodness, I am grateful!

MORE: 2 Corinthians 12:9, Galatians 2:20, Ephesians 1,1 Peter 1:20, John 6:35–44, Romans 8:31–39