Truly I say to you, whoever does not accept and receive and welcome the kingdom of God like a little child [does] shall not in any way enter it [at all]. – Luke 18:17, Amplified Bible

Recently I helped out with game time during one of our weekly Wednesday night children’s church services. For the 3-5 year old age group, our game leader broke the kids up into two teams. Each team was challenged with running through a course of cones as quickly as they could. Whichever team ran the fastest time won.

I was stricken in my observation of the game, not by how fast the kids ran or by their deftness in zig-zagging through the obstacle course. I was stricken by how the two teams spontaneously cheered for the opposing team! Without hesitation and without prompting from the game leaders, they thrust their goodwill at their competitors, wishing them the best of success. I thought to myself how wonderful such esteem for their competitors was, and I lamented how rare it is to find people esteeming others in a society that preaches self-esteem. We lose something as we age; we become too self-aware, too greedy for our own victories.

We lose something else as we age – childlike faith. In Luke 18:17, Christ teaches us that in order to enter into God’s kingdom, we must be like little children, meaning that we must have the childlike ability to completely trust in, rely on, and rest upon God’s promise and method of salvation. Just like a young child, unable to swim, will have complete faith in a parent to catch him when jumping into a pool, we must have complete faith in God to catch us when we leap into His arms for salvation. If you are saved, you did that at one point in your life. But, if you are like most Christians, you’ve lost that childlike faith in God to catch you when you fall in the everyday matters of life. Regularly we replace our childlike faith in God with adultlike faith in ourselves, becoming self-reliant and greedy for having things our way. We lose sight of the childlike faith that brought God’s saving grace into our lives, and so we miss out on the sanctification grace He wants to impart to us to help us face life’s challenges.

Many Christians have heard about “the victorious Christian life,” but few have ever learned how to live it. All one must do to live victoriously is re-learn how to have childlike faith in God, trusting in God’s plan, God’s timing, and God’s purposes. When we do that, we will have victory over the self that blocks God’s best in our lives, and we will live the best life we can possibly live.