The Father's Children
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When I think about “childlike faith,” I think about my dad. When I wonder what I’m invited into by the God of the Scriptures, I begin my exploration in my experiences with my parents. What else do I have?
I think of my dad because he’s my father, and God is frequently called the Father of all. I believe God is also my Mother, but that is another conversation. For now, we are dipping our toes into the mystery of childlike faith.
There may be few things Jesus said and did as disarming as taking time to embrace and converse with children while chiding his impatient and indignant disciples.
It begs the question, why did he point to these little people as exemplars of faith?
…why did [Jesus] point to these little people as exemplars of faith?
THE WOOL PULLED OVER OUR EYES OF FAITH
Why does maturity in the eyes of Jesus look so little like what most churches are striving for (independent, self-feeding, constantly growing, fruit-bearing disciple-makers)?
To avoid walking on eggshells, I’ll say what I mean: when a culture is steeped and saturated in religion, it has no stomach for faith or freedom.
Why does maturity in the eyes of Jesus look so little like what most churches are striving for?
When people believe God accepts them based on conditions, they develop and codify appropriate tracks for measuring and maintaining their sense of progress and achievement. It's what we do. It's how business, physical fitness, and all sorts of things work. But it makes a devastating mess of spiritual living.
What then is childlike faith, and how do we rediscover it?
MATURE FAITH IS IN DEPENDENCE, NOT INDEPENDENCE
Let’s get back to my dad. No one has perfect parents, and no one should expect to be a perfect parent. But I do have a great dad. I grew up seeing him as a provider, refuge, advocate, and encourager. He was someone I could trust at every turn to be for me, my well-being, and my development.
This means I grew up with the privilege of not doubting my dad. I didn’t have to wonder or question if he’d show up or if he loved me. I had my moments of questioning, but those were usually more about me than him.
Go back in your memories to what it felt like to be completely dependent on someone who regularly came through for you. The experience of being needy and helpless is something we Western moderns disdain like an infectious disease. But, I remember feeling more free and secure as a vulnerable child than I ever have as a mature adult.
I remember feeling more free and secure as a vulnerable child than I ever have as a mature adult.
My dad has been an illustration of what God is like. I am unspeakably grateful for this. But to make my point a bit more provocatively, consider a few thought experiments.
Have you ever wondered how weird it would be if you sang a song to your parents about how holy they are? Or spoke the same creed to them every morning before eating your cereal?
Or what if you only felt confident asking them for help if you had faithfully read from their memoirs that week? What if you begged them to meet your daily needs, even though they’ve met them for years?
As a father of 4 children, I have to say that I’d be creeped out by the singing, recitations, and the assumption that I’d ever let their needs go unmet. To be the father of my children is for my heart to be inseparably bound to their well-being and joy. It is for me to be absolutely delighted and utterly committed to their thriving, enjoyment of life, and potential for passing on the same.
To be the father of my children is for my heart to be inseparably bound to their well-being and joy.
If I am like that as a human father, I can't even begin to imagine to what degree God is like that as the Father of all that is.
TAKING THE FATHER FOR GRANTED
Think about that…. God as Father is one of the most common pictures in the Scriptures. If God is our Father, then worship and faith, Christian maturity and freedom, must be other than something we do for God’s love or even because of God’s love.
In other words, childlike faith is more like the revelry of a child in the security of their Father than it is the doing of right and appropriate things for fear that the Father might disapprove. Childlike faith is wholly absorbed in and obsessed with the object of faith, the Father. It takes for granted that the Father is loving, trustworthy, and protective.
Childlike faith is wholly absorbed in and obsessed with the object of faith, the Father.
Most of the time, though, Christian faith looks more like absorption and obsession with the one who has faith - the self. We fret and we worry whether what we’ve done and said or not done and not said will be allowable. Instead of living in the constant assurance of a God whose love never runs out, we suffer the nagging anxiety that God has unmet expectations of us.
Most of the time, though, Christian faith looks more like absorption and obsession with the one who has faith - the self.
FEAR AS DELUSION, FAITH AS DELIGHT
If there’s one thing Christians I’ve met throughout my life have consistently been afraid of, it's disappointing God. We are terrified we are not enough, we cannot do enough, we will have done it all wrong, or we will miss the mark. We have the personal, communal, and societal disintegration to prove it.
If there’s one thing Christians I’ve met throughout my life have consistently been afraid of, it's disappointing God.
I call it spiritual psychosis.
Along with Adam and Eve, we bought the serpent's lie that God isn’t who he says he is, he’s holding out on us, and he is a threat to our living of the good life. Instead of the reality that God holds us with a love that will never let us go, we live in unreality, the illusion that he has set up a conditional cosmos in which he rewards only the faithful with his love.
Pair this with the fact that the most significant human development happens in infancy. Whether or not we are and feel safe with our parents changes everything about us.
Curt Thompson, PHD., says, "We are born into this world looking for someone who’s looking for us." If we are not found, if we do not feel seen, our person begins disintegrating immediately.
I think this is true spiritually as well. If you believe life is about pursuing a desire for God instead of assuming God’s desire for you, you will not live by faith.
What I’d like to do now is proclaim to you what is true about God and you. I'm going to pull on the thread of spiritual psychosis in you.
If you believe life is about pursuing a desire for God instead of assuming God’s desire for you, you will not live by faith.
GOD IS NOT DISAPPOINTED IN YOU
God is not disappointed in you. He has never been, and he never will be.
God will never abandon you and has never abandoned anyone. God’s love for you has nothing to do with anything you have to offer him. That God would ever be any of these things is the beginning of sin, the delusion of separation, and the detestable lie of Satan.
Do you see what this means?
Sin is the antithesis of childlike faith. Sin is the life of believing the wrong things about God. Sin is not primarily disobedience, for, in the garden, distrust preceded disobedience. Sin is how you live when you believe God isn’t good, that you aren’t enough to make him happy, and that your eternity hangs in the balance of what you’re able to muster.
Sin is how you live when you believe God isn’t good…
Religion becomes the only thing we can find to soothe ourselves as we sink deeper into insecurity and anxiety. We build fake metrics, and we track phony achievements to prove to ourselves, the world, or God that our life isn’t futile. We matter. We belong. We followed the right path.
The security of a helpless child in the warm embrace of their Father is the last way I’d characterize most of the people I’ve met, inside and outside the Church.
The Father’s children have always been the Father’s children. We have never been other than the beloved of God, the ones who he delights to hold in existence as an expression of his joy and goodness. No matter what, you could never be anything other than the child of the Father. You are one of his children forever.
No matter what, you could never be anything other than the child of the Father.
“I AM YOUR HOME”
The poorly titled parable of the Prodigal Son shows us childlike faith most emphatically.
Typically, this story is told to help you understand whether you’re the younger or older son. But, I think this story is all about the Father and the way home works in the kingdom of heaven. You could even say it displays childlike faith in the Father.
…this story [of the prodigal son] is all about the Father and the way home works in the kingdom of heaven.
I mean that the Father is foolishly and ridiculously assumptive that his home is always his children's home - no matter what.
When the father first goes out to welcome home the sulking son, who has a moral speech prepared, he spontaneously combusts into celebration without acknowledging any wrongs done. Nothing has changed about this younger son’s belonging to the family of the Father.
The father then goes out to bring in the sour son who lectures him about his reception of the younger son (a moral speech). The father responds to this indignation and entitlement with the most astounding words imaginable, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (Luke 15:31, NRSV).
The posture of God the Father toward all his children is on full display here. Many preachers twist this story into a moralistic motivational speech. Some may focus more on the graciousness of the father. But few will allow the father’s uninhibited sharing of all that he is and has.
Neither son’s moralistic framework was recognizable in the slightest by the father. The father’s only thought was, “I am your home.” He will not have the groveling of the younger son or the breast-beating of the older. Even if they kill him in the name of what is “moral,” he will not waver.
The father’s only thought was, “I am your home.”
RADICAL, UNINHIBITED TRUST
Henri Nouwen, reflecting on this parable from Jesus, said, “Faith is the radical trust that home has always been there and always will be there“ (The Return of the Prodigal Son). The way this father loves his sons reveals to us the sort of Father we have and what sort of “faith” will free us to enjoy him.
The only faith that recognizes our Father for who he is is childlike - the kind that trusts without inhibition. The sort of faith that gets lost beholding the Father while enjoying freedom.
The Father’s children are the Father’s children because he fathered them, not because they distinguished themselves as his children. My kids will always have my love because they are mine, not because they followed, worshiped, represented, or glorified me. My dad, even when he’s most frustrated with me, has always been overcome with the desire for me to know how he loves me.
The Father’s children are the Father’s children because he fathered them, not because they distinguished themselves as his children.
May your soul, mind, and body be at rest and ease, dear reader. There was never a score to keep. You will always be one of the Father’s children.
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