Faith Like a Child

When I was a kid, I was selfish, and to make it worse, entitled. It's one thing to always want to get your way, but its worse when you believe you always deserve it. And then the worse kind of entitlement complex is the kind in which one is not aware of his entitlement complex, because that one is of course always entitled. And these are our children. Not only our children, but all children. Children learn quickly within the first months of their existence, that if they cry they will get what they want. It's funny to think that it may take a lifetime to beat out of them what we conditioned in them within the first few months of their life. As parents, we (we being human beings, not me and you, for I am not a parent, and this is not about parenting)spend 18 years (or more)unspoiling the child. Of course, the diaper must be changed, naps must be taken, food distributed, and of course babies have no other way to communicate to us their helplessness except to cry, but it does not take a way from the fact that babies learn to get what they want by crying and usually they get it, and once they're old enough we then have to deprogram of this. What a strange inconsistency this must seem to be to the toddler, who has heretofore, always been supplied his basic needs by employing the tool of crying, now he gets scolded for doing so, and is suddenly made to "go potty" on his own. We allow our kids to be selfish because they're helpless and clearly we have no choice, but we mistake the helplessness for innocence and the crying for polite requests instead of calling it (the crying) what it is; selfishness. Almost all kids struggle to share their toys, learn the word "mine" very quickly, and spend most of their first 3 years thinking the world revolves around them. And if we do nothing to discourage this behavior, they grow up to be entitled, winey, selfish adults. I always laugh when people talk about children as if they are saints. If kids were saints, you wouldn't need recess ladies, paddles, or bubble baths. When I was a child, I got kicked out of class my first day of Kindergarten for publicly making fun of another kid who peed his pants. In fourth grade, my first day at a new school, I was kicked out of class for laughing at a kid name Morgan. He was a boy. He had what I thought was a girl's name. You get the picture. These were not the worst things I ever did. The other things I did might put my pastoral position on the line if I mentioned them. The thing is, I wasn't the worst kid either. Some of you with children are thinking; "Yeah, tell me about it".
But children however have two redeeming qualities. They are worth emulating. These are the qualities of sincerity and faith. When a child says something, he means it. If he lies, its because he going to get in trouble. But if he tells you that you look ugly, its because you do. And if you tell a kid that the sky is pink, that elephants fly but only on Tuesday, and that the Cleveland Browns are going to win the Super Bowl she will without question believe you. So when Jesus takes a child and puts him on his knee, and tells the disciples that in order to receive the kingdom of God they must become "like one of these" He is obviously not telling them to be good. He is telling them to believe God, without doubting, the way that children believe everything their parents tell them. No matter how ridiculous something may seem to a skeptical adult, a child will never fail to believe it. No matter how ridiculous the thing is that God is asking us to do seems, the kind of person who will receive the kingdom of God is the kind of person who doesn't even give a thought to the ridiculous nature of the thing. In fact the thing is never ridiculous because in the mind of a "child" God would never ask us to do something ridiculous. If God says "I am for you", a child thinks, "He is for me".
Also, a child always means what they say. In may be inappropriate, but it is always sincere, without pretense or any impulse to manipulate. Sarcasm is not a vehicle employed by a child. Wittiness is not a virtue.
In conclusion, children are not innocent, but they are sincere, and they have tremendous faith. Therefore when Jesus tell us and His disciples that we must become like a child in order to inherit the Kingdom of God, he is not telling us to be innocent, but to be sincere, to mean what we say and to have tremendous faith.