Faith, like a Child

by Matt

This post is largely an attempt to kick-start my writing engine. I have so much to say but my fingers have became fat and lazy. As the days accumulate, I found myself straying further and further away from actually journaling my experiences with God. It soon became difficult to determine a starting point. Thus I am convinced that the longer I take to actually start writing something, the more painful this constipation would eventually become. So here it is, a certain form of devotional diarrhea.

One of the things the more enlightening things I have came to know in the past few weeks is the social construct of the Greco-Roman world (aka. Jesus’ time). Our present Singapore culture is increasingly becoming westernized. This changed some things in the nature of our family construct. Back in my grandparents’ days, when the father figure of the house say something, no one would dare talk back. Everything he says, goes. Nowadays things are very different. When parents want to call for a family dinner, they would have to go ask all their children. At many times they were even rejected.

The family structure of the Greco-Roman world was very much top-down authoritarian. The father figure of the house, being the head of the family, would have the most say in all matters. Males of those days were the only ones who received education. Hence due to their reasoning capacity, their opinions were taken to be of most value. Females on the other hand did not receive education, thus people do not put value their words. When I say “Females” I meant wives, as it is not common in those days to remain single when one has reached a marriageable age. Wives, do get some say when it comes to household matters, but people do not generally value their opinions when it comes to making decisions. Now as for Children, some scholars would say that Children remain Children up till the age of thirty. Their opinions were totally disregarded as people would tend to think that they lacked experience.

Probably you would read this with much disgust at the unfairness between peoples. However, we must understand that this is not a matter of the system being right or wrong. It is just culture. People lived with it and life goes on. It became “right” for them to think that way. Now, what really struck me when I learnt about this, was how Jesus taught that the Kingdom of God belongs to Children. In Luke 18:16, the Children were coming to Jesus but adults were stopping them from doing so. But Jesus called the children to him and said, “let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

Consider too, Jesus’ more explanatory teaching on Matthew 18:1-5,

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

Many of us speak of the coined phrase “Childlike Faith”, as if it is about innocence. It is not. Given the social construct of the Greco-Roman world, it is more probable to say that Jesus was talking about humility and against our arc-enemy, Pride. There was never a preference for innocence, but there is a preference for humility. This helps us square with other similar teachings on humility through out the Bible like in 1 Peter 5:5, where the author says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Seems that G. K. Chesterton was right when he wrote that “what we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place” (Orthodoxy, p. 31). Many of us are modest, but all in the wrong places. We should be more modest when it comes to the things of God.

Ever since the start of this year I have been having trouble sensing things regarding God and the cell which I am leading. I feel so aimless when it comes to matters regarding my cell. I have been asking God for direction, specifically for a revival. Because I know that unless God moves, anything I do would be a waste of energy.

Just last Friday, my girlfriend’s cell experienced a true revival. As I hear her share what happened the next morning, something welled up in me. I began to ask God, “what about my cell?! Do they deserve it more than mine?” I wish I can call that happiness. But I think what I felt was more of jealousy. At that moment I felt so hypocritical because just two weeks back I have been teaching a class of Church Planters in Soe, Indonesia, and I mentioned about humility saying, “when a church down the road experiences a revival, how would you feel? Truly happy, or truly jealous?” A recollection of this was like a slap to my face.

It was weird because on Saturday evening, I really heard God reminding me that “it is not whether a group of people deserves it, it is that I chose to do it.” Thats when I realize that pride can so easily develop when I pray for a specific thing for an extended period of time. It comes in the form when I thought that I deserve something more than others. I suppose deep down, I pray like a true Singaporean; in my mind I cannot shake off the queuing concept — that I was here first, please do not cut my queue. I suppose, I should have noted the fine print that says “the numbers do not jump in sequence.”

Lord Jesus, next time when I claim to pray in faith, remind me that the key and end result should always be humility. Thank you Lord, for humbling me.