Faith Like a Child’s

Faith Like a Child’s

This week I spent time with my just-turned-one-year-old grandson.  He knows exactly one word:  Mama.  He says it when I walk into his nursery in the morning, peering past me to see if Mama is coming too—not just this substitute called Grandmom.  He says it again at bedtime when I try to lay him down to sleep.  A soft, insistent mamamamama.  It’s Mama he wants.

That makes perfect sense.  For a year she has been his source of nourishment.  The one who comes when the dark feels scary.  The one who continually delights in him.  Others love him and try to help out of course, but she is the constant.  When she picks him up, his whole body relaxes.  His world feels right again.  In many ways, she is his world.

What a tender picture of what our relationship with God is meant to be.

We sometimes forget that our adoption as God’s children isn’t just a doctrine we affirm; it’s the present reality in which we live.  When we wake in the morning, He is there (Psalm 139:18).  We lie down to sleep in peace because He creates safety (Psalm 4:8).  In Him, we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).

Though the Spirit in us cries out, “Abba, Father,” we can be tempted to quiet that voice with fleeting comforts.  Today, may our faith be simple and childlike — calling for and resting in the One who is our world.

- Catherine Reid