Day 3126 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Matthew 18:3 NIV

Childlike and childish sound one in the same to grown-up hearts now broken well beyond the ability to hope or imagine or believe or trust or even try.

To call someone childish has this air of impropriety to it these days. It’s something akin to an affront to be considered childish. In fact, a simple google search presents these words considered synonymous with childishness: Foolish, immature, infantile, irresponsible, juvenile, naïve, silly, stupid. Yes, up here in the big person land we find kids to be stupid, silly, foolish to the point of using their outlook as a way in which to bash and berate those who don’t fit what we’ve come to expect.

But that’s the whole problem we’re facing when it comes to our faith: He’s not asking us what we expect so that He can fulfill our demands in such a way that make faith and evidence based expedition.

God doesn’t care what we want when we’re caught living our lives like what we want is all that matters. That’s not to say that He doesn’t care about what’s on our hearts, how we’re feeling, what we’re struggling with. He very does care about all those things. But sadly, we’ve this tendency to take things too far. This fact is proven simply in that appreciation is a rarity whilst arrogance is none too common.

Again, that’s the problem. We’ve grown up, gotten older, matured along this path pre-planned and already paved before we began our journey to where the world wanted us to be. Yes, to where the world wanted us to be. It’s all been boiled down to this neatly perfected science wherein our every step must be taken specifically if we’re to ever arrive among the others who’ve decided that they’ve arrived.

At what? What’s the prize this world has won that’s worth losing what we’ve lost in order to gain it? What has the world and the masses happily lost within found that’s of equal value to the souls so clearly not seen as of importance any longer? Fun? Fortune? Fame and a following? You serious? That’s the grand finale? Those are the rewards to be gleaned from giving away things like hope and happiness?

Ok. If that’s what makes life worth living to you then I reckon rock on with your bad self. I don’t know what to say other than good luck. Because I’m such an old soul that I still find myself agreeing with the idea of not saying anything if there’s nothing good to be said. So carry on chasing those prizes if that’s all this is to you.

But I’m out.

No, I’ve suddenly been given this realization that I’ve lost too much to have gained so little. And now, when I say little, I really mean nothing. I’ve gained nothing. Not a thing that I’m honestly proud of having found or won or hung up in some place on my wall that I walk by without even looking at anymore. I’ve got nothing but this unbearable understanding that I’ve lost what maybe mattered most all along.

I’ve lost the immaturity needed to actually hope in something. Lost the happiness that doesn’t need anything to make it possible. Lost the innocence that I can literally pinpoint, give or take, the exact time in which I gave it away. I’ve lost the ability to dream as I’ve become like the many who’ve accepted the invitation into a way of life that doesn’t care about living life like the gift that it is.

Because it’s childish to live that way.

It’s childish to believe in what everyone else says is impossible. It’s childish to love without requirement or restraint. Childish to care about others as if they actually deserve it, or even just because you want to even though they’re not giving you anything in return. Childish to walk blindly behind someone you literally trust with your life because you don’t any different. Yes, it’s childish to walk by faith because it’s apparently more mature to need our sight in order to see.

Need an example, how about change? That’s a word we find right here from Christ himself. To change is to accept a different direction than the one already known. Change demands a humble agreement that something’s not right. For us to change means that we’ve not yet found what we were expecting, and thus realize an alternate approach is needed.

But to change is a fear we learn only as we age into this place where we need to see what’s up ahead before we decide what to do. What’s in it for us? What problems might we face? How much difficulty could be involved? Is it worth it? Prove it. Prove this change is worth the effort and humility needed otherwise it must not be.

And yet, change isn’t something kids ever know to even consider.

It’s not something kids think about let alone actively live in fear of having to face. To a child, everything changes while nothing changes. It’s all just life. It’s simple. It’s normal. Life’s not overfilled or overthought nor therefore overwrought with worry about what to do, what needs to be done, what’s happening or where we’re supposed to fit within it all.

See, that's the sadness in all this. We're all so engrossed and engorged with this mindset trained and engrained to focus on what it is that we think we're gaining as we grow and mature and finally find ourselves among the giants to whom we once looked up. But it's only once we're in this place where we're free to do as we please that we one day realize horrifically what didn’t have to be lost to get here, but what was lost along the way anyway.

God's had this all on my heart so heavily of late that I cannot find words sufficient to convey all the thoughts I'm having and the lessons I'm learning and the hope I'm finding in this chance to change, to turn, to return to something, to someone I honestly believe I shouldn't have been so quick to leave behind.

But there’s this heartbreaking discrepancy between what the world tells us and how I now believe it’s supposed to work. It’s this confusion caused by our being caught between voices screaming so loudly that life must be lived one certain way drowning out the simplicity we’d all rather hold onto at least a while longer. But in time, even that effort to cling to something special begins to unravel as the world continues to peck and pull and push and pressure all of us into the molds they’ve made.

And that’s where and how we’ve lost all we’ve lost sight of the importance of, all that’s now deemed childish.

As kids we're seen as these little munchkins that are only alive to have fun and eat everything they shouldn't. Kids have no responsibilities, bring nothing to the table, literally exist in this bubble where the pinnacle of life's opportunities can be fulfilled in an hour of cartoons and a bucket of ice cream. Kick in some popcorn and you'll see a tiny human lose their minds with joy.

Because there is no lack of happiness in the simplicity of a child's perspective. All they know is happiness. All they want is happiness. All they care about is staying happy, being content being happy.

And we lose that all because there's some imaginary line we apparently cross where the world says that that's not okay anymore.

It's not okay to laugh like an idiot at a corny joke anymore. It's not okay to eat ice cream for dinner anymore. It's not okay to use a streetlight as the only watch you need anymore. It's not okay to trust in people, to see the good in people, to simply hope that there is somehow still something good in someone somewhere. It's not okay to believe that anymore. Not okay to believe anymore.

We cross this line where we become the adults we couldn't wait to be only to find that once we're over it, it's over. Because just beyond that line where the world says we've gotta hurry up and grow up and catch up and keep up, everything that made life beautiful begins to fade little by little as we learn that more and more of what we always knew isn't okay anymore.

So minds once overflowing with aspirations gave way to one now filled with only endless aggravations. Hearts that were once so full of hope that they refused to consider any other outcome are now so empty they’ve grown hard. Yes, love used to be enough but now we’re afraid to lose. And thus, those who once wanted to be superheroes and princesses now just don’t want to be late for work.

What’s terrifying is that that’s considered okay now that we’re ‘mature’. But what's tragic is that all blindly agree just because we live in this place that constantly encourages us to never look back. You're not going that direction, they say. You've already been there, so there's nothing more to be found there. You've got the scars from the pains felt along the way, aren't they enough reason to not reconsider where you've been?

But I’m here to tell you that looking back to the kids we were before all this concession was chosen offers a kind of insight more needed than sight itself. As I've shared over the past couple of days, there's these reminders of a life I've not lived since before middle school. And I've thought a lot about why it is that we seem to be able to hold onto those random memories of things so long ago while at the same time usually struggling to remember what we ate yesterday or needed from the store for today.

Why do we hold on to certain things but forget the majority? Why do we have those experiences so poignant and magnificent that we can't forget them despite the years that pass between then and now? Why does God give us the ability to remember anything, especially from a childhood we've been taught to see as entirely, completely, unnecessarily childish?

Hit me this morning that they're anchors. They keep us tied to a time in which life meant something. They serve as reminders of an outlook, of a feeling, of an emotion that we've likely lost in this hustle toward what's only proven a hassle. They stay there, locked in place in a place to which maybe we didn't have it all figured out, but that we didn't want to.

And maybe that’s what we’re missing by agreeing to never look back, let alone go back to what’s now not considered acceptable.

Maybe we’re missing the realization that it’s not about figuring it all out. Maybe it’s not about what we gain but what we’ve lost in order to get it. Maybe it’s not about indulgence as much as it is observance. Maybe it’s not about fitting in but remembering we weren’t supposed to. Maybe what we’re missing, which is oddly enough perhaps why the world insists we don’t look back, is the realization that this world doesn’t control us, shouldn’t control us.

And that's why we have to change, because the world has controlled us. So that's why we have to turn. That's why we have to return to something simpler than the complexity the world's convinced us to make of our lives. Because it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the gates of Heaven. Because they'll always be afraid about what they have to lose.

Kids don't care. If they lose a game, hey, they had fun running around with their friends and playing in the dirt. If they lose their toy, they play with another. If they lose a friend, actually, who am I kidding, kids don't lose friends. That's something specifically reserved for the arrogance and attitudes of an adult who allows petty nonsense to overshadow and outshine the power of love and the gift of companionship.

Yeah, we've got it all figured out don't we?

Well, not according to Christ. He obviously believes we've more to lose now that we've found so much than we did back when we had nothing, because back then we wanted nothing, needed nothing. We were just alive and happy to be. We were willing to believe, able to believe. We were convinced we could go anywhere, do anything, be anything. But strangely, now that we can we won't.

Why?

Well, because we've forgotten what life's all about. Nowadays it's all social media and credit scores. It's headlines and politics. It's contempt and competition. It's anger and opportunity. It's success and trying to drown out our sorrows. It's merely waiting to die so we don't have to hate the hollowness of life anymore.

We've lost everything in this chase to the place we thought we'd find everything. But we only thought we’d find it all here because the world in unison said so. Guess what, the world lied. But the bigger problem is that we listened. And the biggest problem is that we still listen. We still let them tell us who to be, what to think, where to go. And we go. Because honestly, we're more childish now than we've ever been before.

We’re more irresponsible with our time than a kid is with their allowance. We’re more immature when it comes to things like disagreements than a child is pretending that everyone’s their friend. We’re more foolish, more stupid now thinking that we can force life to go our way than a child is who wakes up every day just excited to see what happens. Adults are childish, because they’re the ones who continue to try and prove they grew up.

Something has to change friends. This path we're on ain't what we've been told it is. This world isn't our home, these lives aren't meant to be filled with junk, this time we have isn't as superficial as adulthood has made it seem. So many things matter so much more than what people think of us. And sadly, that's only something a kid doesn't care about. In fact, adults care about far too much to even live anymore.

Far too much to believe anymore.

And that's what has to change. Because faith demands the ability to imagine. It requires the willingness to believe in the impossible. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. It's confidence so confident that we don't even need to see Him to know He’s there. It's the assurance that we're doing what is right despite the world telling us it's wrong. It's a life lived still looking up, just knowing that there's something up there that we need to see, even though we can't yet.

The fact is that it takes a child's outlook to look beyond that which can be seen. That's something we don't have as these adults we've become. We don't have the willingness to believe in anything we can't see. We won't trust anyone we can't control. We won't chase anything that doesn't give us endless reasons and constant success in doing so. We won't do anything that might make us look silly, feel stupid, sound simple.

Because we care about all the wrong things that have stolen away our reason to hope. And that’s why Christ calls us to a childlike faith, because it takes the heart of child to be bold enough to hope in a promise that takes patience, because a grown-up doesn't know how to hope in anything anymore.

That’s why I'm going back. Back to an outlook not clouded by worldly concerns. Back to a heart that didn’t care about proving anything to anyone. Back to a kid who can now finally realize that the only opinion that ever mattered is the one from the One who came looking for me all this time I was lost trying to be everything a kid wouldn’t want to be.

And I know it’s working already because I don't care who cares. Couldn't care less what anyone thinks of me at this point, because I've gotten nothing from caring about that nonsense all this time.

If you need me, I'll be doing my best to enjoy my life through a child's eyes. Because these ones I’ve been looking through are tired of what they've been taught to see. I want to believe again, and well, seems there's a lot of things that have been in the way that need to go.

So I’m going back.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold