"Truly I tell you," He said, "unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child--this one is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."
Matthew 18:3-4
When it comes to children, there is no such thing as having a filter. They say EVERYTHING that pops into their little, growing brains. You never have to worry what they are thinking. I have been working with kids since I was about 14, a child myself I suppose. I love kiddos. They are silly, honest, real, and not self conscious.
I am currently a 2nd grade teacher at a Christian school. Our curriculum includes Bible integration, so I get to point everything we learn back to God’s word and His original design for the world. We sometimes start classes off with a Bible story, worship song, memory verse, or prayer. There is nothing that melts me more than listening to a child pray. Their prayers are real, tender, vulnerable, and powerful. When I ask for a volunteer to pray, I am not kidding you when I say that every hand in the class shoots up. If a student isn’t picked, they get upset that they do not get to pray (not a bad thing to be upset about, right?)
We recently had Dengue, COVID, and Influenza A floating around the school. There was a week where one of my classes had 8 out of 20 students out due to illness. I wish you could have heard the way these students prayed for their sick friends. As they asked the Lord to pass His healing hand over their classmates that were hurting, I had to fight back little tears welling up in my eyes. There is just something about the prayers of a child.
I am very passionate about the global church and being aware of what is happening in the world, so that we know how to pray for our world. I shared with my students about the war in Israel, and we took some time to talk to God about what was happening. They asked God to help the innocent and for His protection over everyone. These are unscripted, straight from the heart prayers.
I had a conversation with one of my students the other day about how we should shine our lights for Jesus. We talked about how some people are just not kind, even people who say they love Jesus can be mean and hurt our feelings. Her response was so pure and straight to the point. She said, “You know teacher when the Fall entered the world and there was sin, it made people really bad. Then they hurt people.” She looked up at me with her big brown eyes and her piggy tails swaying with her head as she spoke.
What would it look like if we all had this childlike faith? Where we are in awe of our Creator again, talk to Him like a friend and not use all the fancy Christian lingo? What if we looked at the Bible through a child’s lens and had that childlike wonder again?
Matthew 18:3-4 tells us that we won’t enter into the kingdom of heaven unless we humble ourselves like children. We need to take off selfishness, pride, and people pleasing. We can start here.
God, give us that wide-eyed childlike faith. Remove all the things that hinder us from having intimacy with You. Take away performance, striving, self consciousness, and pride so that we can walk humbly with You and others. Open up all of our senses to see you in new ways and be in awe of our Creator, our Savior. Give us childlike faith. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
Journey to Dominican 