Like a Child

Matthew 18:1-5 At about the same time, the disciples came to Jesus asking, "Who gets the highest rank in God's kingdom?"

For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, "I'm telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you're not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God's kingdom. What's more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it's the same as receiving me. 6-7"But if you give them a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you'll soon wish you hadn't. You'd be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck. Doom to the world for giving these God-believing children a hard time! Hard times are inevitable, but you don't have to make it worse—and it's doomsday to you if you do.

I like the idea of becoming like a child, returning to the simple and
elemental. I have talked a lot to Pastor John about Jungian stuff, and the idea of the "kingdom within." There are "little children" in all of us. They are trusting and simple, but also demanding, undisciplined, unruley, needy. This nun at the monastery told me that instead of yelling at those parts you need to say, "Come here, I love you, your mine." But then you need to teach them what they are doing to the grown up parts of you, and show them a different way to meet their needs. But if you reject or ignore those parts of you, you will hear from them again, in a gygantic tantrum...cause that's what kids do. If you were indoctrinated into a kind of belief systemd that taught you to have a strict internal parent who didn't tolerate any deviations from this forward march to church-defined maturity, than any need to play, to be immature, to explore, to be like a kid, was stifled. Maybe you werent' rebelling against goodness, or God, but against the internal parent that was telling your internal kid, "Be more useful!" "You don't have time to create, daydream, explore." "Grow up, stop being immature!" "Stop whining!" "Go to your room!" "Memorize your bible verses!", "You don't have time to play!" "Clean your room!" "Do your chores."