Like Catherine introduced last week, I recently got married to June, and he moved to New Zealand, drawing our future here to settle. Besides our foundational reasons to build a family in God, my personal reason for choosing June as a lifelong partner was that I could easily let out my childlikeness when I’m around him. Even as we get older, there’s clearly still a childlike part somewhere within us. There might be a comfort person who brings that childlikeness out in us, or maybe our personality itself just leans childlike. I grew up quite independently as an immigrant here, always on a visa with no guaranteed stability, which naturally stripped away my childlike traits but he’s someone who loosens that grip in me, the instinct to always handle things on my own, to stay in control. So to be childlike is to depend completely on someone reliable, to relax and let go of our anxious grip on control.
This reminded me of Mark 10:13-16 which illustrates the scene where people bring children to Jesus, the disciples try to stop them, and Jesus rebukes them. As He corrects the disciples, He teaches them about the kingdom, saying that God’s kingdom belongs to people like them, not that only children themselves enter, but that those who are like children enter.
Think about how the children came to Jesus in the first place: holding someone’s hand, completely dependent, being led there. It’s the same with us. The kingdom belongs to this kind of childlikeness, to those who can’t do it without the Lord, who are led by Him. As we go through life, more and more responsibilities build up, and we naturally end up living lives where we’re leading ourselves or leading others. But the One who is actually leading us is Jesus.
So let today be the day we restore that childlike heart, and let’s truly take in His heart—that He sees us as children with a Father’s heart. Let us also reflect on what comfort or challenge it brings us today to know that God looks at me with a Father’s heart.
“Then he took the children in his arms. He placed his hands on them to bless them.” Mark 10:16 NIRV
Blessings,
Chae