Childlike Faith

I remember a time when my Aunt came to visit us, and amid our conversation, our daughter, Kashmir asked my husband, Kevin, a question. He answered quickly and explained the why behind his answer. Now everyone who lived in our house didn’t think anything of it because it isn’t uncommon for our children to ask us questions. But my Aunt thought it was so amazing that Kashmir simply took him at his word. She accepted his answer to be true because he said it was. She believed him without question because she trusted him. After all, her father had never let her down, he never lied to her, and he gave her a safe space to ask questions without the fear of rejection. 

Children are born knowing they have limited knowledge and ask questions with the sole purpose of learning. They don’t think about the fact that the question may offend, they just ask openly and honestly. How many times have we heard children ask the most inappropriate questions out loud, and everyone rushed over to them trying to cover their mouths before the entire sentence rolled off their tongues? 

After seeing my sister and me together side by side, Liliana once asked me, “Mom, are you bigger than Auntie Veronica?” Just as I was about to answer, she then bared down, making herself appear shorter and stockier which had somehow transformed her voice from a sweet 5-year-old girl to a gruff, lower octave voice. Then continued, “I mean I know you’re bigger than Auntie,” she said emphasizing the word bigger in her still gruff voice, “but are your bigger than her? ”, she asked. As my other three children gasped and reprimanded her for being so honest, I stopped them and explained she didn’t say it intentionally. I explained that “Although Auntie is taller than me, I am older than her, I am wiser than her and I am wider than her.” 

She wasn’t asking to be mean; she wasn’t asking to cause embarrassment; she only wanted truths. Children don’t focus on who’s around when asking questions to their parents. As far as they’re concerned, their parents are the only ones important enough to talk to because they’re the ones that are giving the answers.

Children believe, without a doubt, that their parents know everything. That is until somehow, someone suggests them to think otherwise. Once outside influences take hold, they begin to question. Maybe a teacher said something different, or a friend shared disbelief. Just look at poor Bobby Boucher who was in college and still thought Ben Franklin was the devil and his mama invented electricity until school taught him otherwise.

Faith and hope are defined in the dictionary as follows: Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing or a belief not based on proof and Hope is an optimistic attitude of mind based on an expectation or desire. Faith says it is so now, and hope says that in the future it could happen.

Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

 I have faith that the floor I’m standing on will hold me up. If I only hoped it would, I wouldn’t have walked in the building. 

When a blind man asked Jesus for healing in Matthew chapter 9, Jesus told him, “According to your faith, be it unto you.” And he was healed. The blind man saw with eyes of faith that nothing is impossible for our God. It was his faith in God that produced the impossible.

Matthew 21:21, “Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say to you, If you have faith, and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Be thou removed into the sea and it shall be done”.

Faith is the confident assurance that the word of God is true. Is there anything too hard for him? What is that we need to ask him so openly, so honestly? What answer do we diligently seek from him? Are we trusting in Him completely, or are we too busy putting limitations on what he can and can’t do? 

Childlike faith trusts completely. It knows that the Father will not let us down. It understands that we can ask honest questions openly without fear of rejection. Childlike faith focuses solely on the Father for answers. It asks questions with the expectation of answers, never doubting, and only listening to him, hanging on his every word because childlike faith knows that the father speaks only truth. Childlike faith knows the limited knowledge we keep and seeks to learn more and more every day, hoping to mirror the wisdom the Father has. Childlike faith is what moves the mountains.  We need to fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer, and the perfecter of faith.