Childlike Faith.

30 Jul 2017

PSA: this is a very belated post about New Wine for various reasons, please try to pretend that I posted this weeks ago!!!!

"Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity."

The New Wine Ireland annual summer conference has been and gone for another year and yet again I've come home feeling more full and more challenged than before and this year it was all down to the amazing kids that we have the privilege of leading.

This was my first year volunteering on the children's ministry team, people tend to attend conferences to further their relationship with God and when volunteering you are responsible for assisting the children in doing so but it doesn't always work that way. In fact, I'd say I learnt just as much from the children as the children learned from me. Leading children is a symbiotic relationship, you feed off of each other, each one planting seeds in the others life and watching them grow.

Children aren't born knowing the gospel, they aren't brought into the world knowing that Jesus died for them, it's our responsibility, as their elders, to bring them that truth in order that they may prosper in it. Children are the easiest to evangelise to because they're so open and accepting of the gospel, they want to learn more. When you tell them that Jesus died for their sins they don't think anything else other than to believe it. This is what Jesus meant when he said we have to have a childlike faith. We should be totally fixed on Jesus, and not care about any other fulfillments in life. Children pray so freely and so often I stumble in prayers worrying about what others will think of what I'm saying, that they're going to think I'm not reverent enough because I don't use big enough words or because of the things that I don't say, Children don't have that fear, they just pray, knowing that it doesn't matter what other people think. That all that matters is what you say to God even if it's only something simple like "please don't make them be afraid".

When Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them" we need to reflect on whether w took it to heart. Children's prayers are even more powerful than we could imagine yet some people are so concerned about getting children to pray. At our family celebration on Friday afternoon, we had children pray with their parents and other adults and we saw results.

So live out that childlike faith that your adult-self forgot, approach the King of Glory as the King of Glory, praise him and don't question it. If each of us could learn to be more like a child, completely unafraid for God didn't place a spirit of fear in us, but a spirit of freedom, we need to live freely and glorify him with our entire beings. Children are so hungry to learn more and to grow even more in their faith. Are you?