Like a Child
While developing a relationship with Christ, it is necessary to cast off adult ways of perceiving the world. Without making an effort to recognize the mysterious infinity of God, no disciple achieves a deeper relationship with Spirit than one might make with a distant celebrity, athlete or politician whom they have never met in person. Following are three suggestions to become “like a child”.
“Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” — Mark 10:5 ESV
NATURE
Like a child, a disciple of Christ must cultivate an openness to new experiences and to acknowledging each for what it offers within itself. Even a willful child can be surprised and enthralled by a new experience. Perhaps the easiest way to expand one’s perspective is to contemplate aspects of nature in depth.
A classic method to expand one’s perspective is to focus on the horizon. The intricacies of nature dissolve when staring at the horizon. It can be a sunrise or a sunset. It can be over water, or land. However, sitting still and absorbing the horizon as a feeling and perception works best when it is distant.
I’ve included a picture from Bok Tower and Gardens in Lake Wales. There are benches and a pleasant yard where one can sit and look over the groves, fields, and water of central Florida.
Another method of using nature to build a relationship with God is to consider the beauty within a flower. Some flowers are complex, others are simple, but all invite the onlooker to aspire to something more beautiful and uplifting.
ART
The emotions and perspectives conveyed through art are personal and can expand one’s understanding of the world. The Roman Catholic and Easter Orthodox churches better understand the role of art in making one childlike than the reformed church does. It’s not idolatry when art inspires one to contemplate and develop empathy for scenes from the life of Christ Jesus. Above is a photo from the Basilica Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Savannah, GA. The design of the building as well as the individual pieces of art create a sense of awe in nearly everyone who experiences them.
However, even secular art can open new horizons and possibilities for thinking more broadly. I recently began cultivating my own perspectives on art within museum. For example, by careful aim and telescoping perspectives, I have been able to place a detail from one sculpture onto a painting from another artist. The sculpture against a nearby oil was captured at The James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art in St. Petersburg, Florida. Contemplating the juxtaposition helps me to imagine worlds within worlds.
PHILOSOPHY
While studying a formal school of philosophy may help one to open their mind to a different point of view, the exercise proposed here is more simple and self-directed. Take one of the grand topics that has puzzled mankind for eons and resolve it for yourself. Come to your own conclusion, if you can.
Consider the philosophy of time, for example.
Popular measurements of time are bound to the world of change. Time is a measurement of change. Change requires a step by step progression from birth to death, from creation to destruction. Concepts like eternity are meaningless when everything is destined to end. Yet eternity exists and appears in a linear timeline as cycles. The day is one spin of the earth and a year is one elliptical trip around the little star in earth’s solar neighborhood.
Ask most Christians about eternity and the answer is likely that eternity is a never ending string of Gregorian calendar years, counted since before Christ and again after his death. That definition of eternity couldn’t be farther from the truth, if only because solar years will end with creation. The Gregorian calendar will fall much sooner.
In Genesis, God breathed life into the human form. Personal time could be measured in the number of breaths. There is an Eastern philosophy that states each human is born with a preset number of breaths and dies when their breaths run out.
Within the short record of history that humanity can trace back in words and stone, it is obvious that civilizations rise and fall. The measure of a society could be made against the yardstick of rise and fall of language, arts, engineering, and service to the greatest number of individuals. Civilizations rise when service to others is a dominate goal and fall when selfishness rules.
Eternity, however, must be how God measures change. Perhaps, the seven days mentioned in Genesis are notations regarding the establishment of the laws of material creation. Let there be light, and water, and firmaments, and plants, and animals, and divine beings called humans. Since that seventh day, God has not altered any of the laws of creation. If He did, this creation would cease and another would be formed.
So what is eternity if not the number of breaths a human takes, if not the rise and fall of civilizations, if not a sequence of laws to establish a new creation. When this creation ends, as it must, eternity cannot be a string of solar years. Yet God existed before the time measured by humanity and will continue to exist after time. Why not ask God in prayer and meditation, what is eternity, and wait for His answer.
Time has been one of the philosophies I like to consider and attempt to resolve. I want to know what “eternity” can be. However, other topics to consider might be how to define beauty, the collaborative juxtaposition of intelligence versus wisdom, or even the existence and origin of evil. If God is good, and all is God, then where did evil originate. What is a fallen angel? There are as many stimulating questions as there are individuals.
SUMMARY
Christ Jesus calls upon his disciples to be open to whatever God presents. A disciple must be willing to follow Christ, like a good child follows his parents. As a disciple builds a relationship with God, much, most, or all of creation may be revealed as drastically different then it first appeared. Like trusting child, each new Christian must look to God to provide the answers rather than projecting personal knowledge, assumptions, expectations and judgements into the Divine relationship. Use contemplation of nature, art, or philosophy to build a relationship with God and enter the Kingdom full of wonder and amazement like a child.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
