Phil On ..
CHILD-LIKE AWE - the route to heaven.
I don’t know about you, but when I read a bible passage it usually provides an unwelcome reminder of things I should or should not be doing. Just occasionally, I read something that makes me think, “Yes! I’m doing something right!”
I am probably repeating myself here, but the book “Walking with Jesus” by Sarah Young is an awesome publication. For every day of the year you read a wonderfully crafted passage. It generates the strong impression Jesus is actually speaking to you on a one-to-one basis. At the bottom of the page are readings from scripture that back up the truth of what you have just read.
One passage I read a couple of months ago talked about the importance of taking time to enjoy God’s creation. There are a million things that we could select for our pastimes. Someone once described earth as having an invisible net of opportunities constantly moving above us. At any time we can reach out and grab whatever takes our fancy. Equally, we can choose to return things when our passion for them diminishes. I wonder what you like doing in your down-time? I’m quite greedy in that I find happiness in a number of things – long walks in the country, bird-watching, football, baseball and cooking are just some. Whatever we choose, God wants us to fully embrace and enjoy it! Only by having a child-like excitement for what we do can we truly praise God.
Frighteningly often it seems to me, strong connections can be made between different things we hear concerning God. So a few weeks later, there was a Christening at Trentham Methodist Church. Our pastor Joe talked about the familiar passage where Jesus rebuked his disciples for not allowing the children to come to him. Jesus said that to reach heaven you must be like a child. I had always thought this meant we needed to show God the same utter trust, respect and love that young children have in their parents. Joe also mentioned the wonderful enthusiasm children have for even the simple things they see. I remember as a child being totally absorbed with trying to catch falling leaves from trees on windy autumn days (not as easy as it sounds!). Now it seems pointless and trivial, but at that early stage of my life, it meant such a lot. Such enthusiasm is a way of praising God. As we get older it can become more difficult to hold on to such feelings of wonder and excitement because, in many ways, we have increasingly “seen it, done it, got the T-shirt”. However, it’s important that we work on this because the alternative is allowing ourselves to become dragged down into a life of drudgery associated with only performing the same repetitive daily tasks needed to feed and clothe ourselves. This will only lead us to become bitter which displeases God.
To bring things up to date, I read another “Walking with Jesus” text a few days ago. It described how Jesus walks ahead of us each day, leaving “little gems” that will gladden our hearts. The passage encouraged the reader to pick up and remember these gems, offering them back to Jesus at the end of the day as a bouquet of thanks. This reminds us that everything we enjoy is a gift from God that could be taken away from us at any point and shouldn’t rule our lives to the point of excluding God.