Looking through young eyes

Sometimes life seems so complicated.  We don't appreciate the days when we had no bills, mortgages, cleaning lists, obligations, work pressures.....the list goes on. We spend a large part of our childhood wishing we were adults, then a large part of our adult life thinking it would great to be a kid again when life was so simple.

I think we can learn a lot from children though. Kids look at things differently than adults do. My little girl may only be 1 yr old, but she is teaching me so much, something I never expected.  I thought it was my job to teach her!  But everything we do holds bundles of fun for her, from folding washing, to a day out. She laughs all the time. At anything.  Whereas I look upon folding the washing as a chore I don't really want to do, she just finds it another thing where she can have fun.

We sometimes make a little game of folding the washing and play peekaboo with it as I'm hanging it out or folding it. However, the other day we were going out, so I just got on with putting the wet washing on the airer with no games. About 3 items in, she stood by the basket and handed me the next item; I put it on the airer, and then she handed me the next. I was suprised by her doing this, and obviously thought it was so sweet that she was helping her mummy. She thought it was fun, and was laughing, and all of a sudden it was fun for me too. I saw 3 things though when she did this. Firstly, she learnt what we were doing by watching me. Second, she accepted the task and started helping out. And thirdly, she did it with great joy, and still thought it was great fun.

If we are watching the ones we look up to (Jesus and those He's put in leadership of His church), we will see what they are doing and learn what is required. We need to accept their authority and start "doing" too. And finally we need to do it with joy, not grumbling and groaning. If we're not doing this, what are our children seeing when they look to us?



I also think we overcomplicate things as adults. We have "10 steps to financial wellbeing"; "7 keys to receiving our healing", "20 things that keep us in unforgiveness" etc etc. You've heard the sermons (and I'm not in any way condemning such sermons).  But really, only one thing is needful. Jesus made it so simple: Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness. Perhaps this is what Jesus was referring to when He told us to have child-like faith. We have all these steps and keys, and sometimes we miss the most important thing; we should be keeping it simple. We get bogged down with our complicated lives and we zap the fun out of things, questionning authority, questionning God's word perhaps. Will that prayer be answered? Does God really care?  If we have child-like faith, we would perhaps approach things in a different way. Whilst we're waiting for an answer to prayer, knowing our Father loves us and will answer us, maybe we'd be more joyful and maybe we would see the joy in the little things and stop grumbling and groaning. 

It's all a matter of perspective. As adults we seem to lose this ability to see the world as a child sees it. We make things boring, because we see things as a chore, from doing the housework, to turning up at the prayer meeting. As I look at my little girl, she's so full of joy and innocence and she goes about her day finding the joy in everything. Children just enjoy life. Maybe today we should keep things simple, look at things like a child would, and get back to child-like faith.