A few weeks ago I was in a store and saw a father and son playing. The father would pick up his son, toss him up just above his hands and catch him mid-air with the child laughing with delight at each toss. This scene gave me two thoughts: my first thought was a memory of doing the same thing with my nephew, who loves being tossed around. The second was “If someone were to do that to me now, I think I’d wet myself!”
Aside from the fact that anyone who would be able to toss my over 6’1″, over 200 lb body in the air like that would be terrifyingly large, why is it that would scare me so? I mean, surely I enjoyed the same thing at that age, and I also enjoyed ice cream then, so why did my love for one not fade while my love for the other cannot even be remembered? As I walked around the store pondering questions such as these, it hit me, I would be scared now because I know the consequences. I know what could happen if i was dropped. I know what if feels like to be let down.
Small children have no concept of the danger they are in, why should they? I mean, my nephew likes for me to toss him around because I’ve never dropped him. He has no reason to believe I’ll drop him now. As adults, however, we’ve all been dropped by people. We may not have physically been dropped, but we have definitely been emotionally dropped. People always let us down, so we constantly keep our guards up. If you’ve ever had someone whom you put 100% trust in hurt you, then you know how hard that is to overcome.
The good news for us is that we have a God who is wholly faithful and never lets us down, even though we may not see it immediately. Matthew 18:2-5 says:
2 He called a little child and had him stand among them. 3 And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 “And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.
What I read into what Jesus is saying is that essentially adults muck things up and children are able to see clearly. We always see things through our own experiences, and children typically don’t have enough experience to be concerned about anything. Often we try to look at God through the filter we’ve built during our lives, with fear He is going to fail us. We live in fear of letting go and following Him completely because we fear he will drop us.
Have you ever felt that way? I know I have. Often I feel so terrible about something I’ve done that I just know God won’t be faithful to me. My pastor recently pointed out that we aren’t saved by our works and we don’t lose salvation through works. I like that because it points out that God is perfectly faithful even when we aren’t. He wants us to have that childlike faith to trust Him to catch us when we are falling. We learn a lot about ourselves when we feel powerless and become even more comfortable when we realize how powerful He is. What better way to experience that than to let God “toss” us and have faith that no matter how far away from Him we fly, he will always catch us? God is faithful and when we really believe that, then we will have the power to overcome anything.
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Some people say that they would not change anything in their lives if given the opportunity. I don’t think I’m one of those people. See, I’ve done plenty that I regret. When I look back over my life, I think of periods that I wish I could remove. Periods when I was away from God, when I did things I’d rather not speak of, much less remember. Periods when I’ve lost my temper and did or said things that I immediately regretted. Why wouldn’t I want to change those things? Wouldn’t you? Is there some reason that I would want to keep those bad things in my life?
