Child-like faith vs Adult-like reason

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18th Birthday- Wooh!!!

20th Birthday- Awesome!!!

21st Birthday- Yeah!!

25th Birthday- Okay

26th Birthday- Seriously?!!

27th Birthday- Please, make it STOP!!!

Birthdays are days of the year we look forward to. Especially, as children. When Adulthood checks in, a massive paradigm shift occurs. Instead of anticipating them with eagerness and glee, we sometimes meet them with dread. You would think one more year of living life would be cause for celebration, instead, panic sets in at the realization that one's life is trundling towards the finish line,.

I know this for a fact because I've experienced it. I'm 27 now!!! I'm still very much in denial that I'm growing old. However, were I to consider the alternative, of dying early, then I appreciate that God has blessed me with another year.

As we advance in years, a part of us still wants to hold on to memories and experiences of our youth. A part of us still wants to be 'forever young'. A part of us still wants to live in the past of childhood and never grow old like Peter Pan.

For the child of God, this conflict of interests is a potential landmine. The battle that rages within, between the child-like self, that implicitly trusts, hopes for the best; and the adult self, that tends to rationalize things, leaning towards cynicism; can be subject to manipulation, the devil's manipulation and that of our sinful nature.

It is not without good reason that Jesus teaches us to model a child-like faith. For starters, God is trustworthy. He is love, He loved us so much that he sent his only son, Jesus, to show us how is like and then die for us to atone for our sin and reconcile us to God(John 3:16, I John 5:11-12, Galatians 2:20). God being the loving father he is, gives us good gifts,(Matthew 7:11) and if he could not spare his own son for us but gave him up for all, how will he not give us anything if he knows we need it(Romans 8:32)

Like any loving father who knows the significance of being present and the comfort children derive from knowing Daddy is there; God promises never to leave us( Hebrews 13:5). As kids, more so being sinful in nature, we can be prone to mess up but God forgives us, not just for our sake but his as well(Isaiah 43:25) and even when we don't think we deserve forgiveness or even when someone else doesn't think we merit forgiveness, he still forgives us.(Luke 15:11-32, Jonah 3-4)

Yet in spite of this, and more, our faith in God isn't as small as a mustard seed, worse, it's even smaller! Frequently, we lapse into moments of distrust and doubt in his good plan for us. In those moments, the Devil, uses an ingenious tactic, just like he did millennia ago with Eve, reason

He sidestepped God's command for Eve to trust God through obedience by leading her to reason and question if God was holding out on her; that the fruit was good for her. She fell and so did Adam, and he continues to use that as his trump card every now so often.

Reason is intrinsic to us, it's what make us human, it's what forms the basis for understanding and discernment, but on the negative, it is susceptible to Satan's manipulation when the foundation for our faith is substituted with manipulated reason. Reason is what he uses to lead us astray. It's usually packaged so well, with solid arguments and premises ,making it hard to dismiss. It may sound something a bit like this......

"This corrupt government steals my taxes, why don't I just understate my income. People get away with refusing to pay tax, at least I paid some of it."

" I am going to fail this exam, I am not going to graduate if I do, why don't I just cheat, I've worked so hard to come this far and it's only just to get a satisfactory grade, it's not like I want to be in the Dean's list or something."

"Let me just settle with this guy, I'm not sure I really love him but he loves me and he provides financial stability, good men are so hard to find any way."

" I have a loan to pay, along with rent, my kid needs to go to the hospital, this side-deal more than covers for those, I need the money, God knows I do. Who cares about policies and standard operating procedures?"

And the list goes on. Think of being rudely awaken by the alarm and hitting the snooze button because of thousands of excuses that run in your head telling you it's the right decision, that's the same way the devil operates alongside your sinful nature, feeding on the opportunity to sin if you let your guard down by rationalizing the act with every possible reason to make it seem valid. Most of the time, this flawed reason substitutes child-like faith to damaging effect.

When Abraham lied about Sarah, he reasoned he would be killed if he didn't so he lied. (Genesis 12,20)When David took a census, he reasoned that he could count his fighting men and by doing so, attribute his military success to numbers rather than God who granted him victory. (1 Chronicles 21)When Saul made a sacrifice, he reasoned that sacrifice was better than obedience (1 Samuel 15)

Reason ends up taking us places we later on regret after acting from reasoning it out. Child-like faith, on the surface looks crazy but it's the surest way to avoid the pitfalls of sin.

Child-like faith is comfortable not knowing the motives behind the commandments, it is okay not knowing the answers, it trusts, it believes and it obeys regardless of the command. Child-like faith is when Abraham was ready to sacrifice his son, knowing without Isaac, it was crazy to foresee having numerous descendants like the stars. Child like faith is when Joshua  agreed to walk in circles even when the command made no military sense and was just borderline crazy. Child-like faith is when Naaman agrees to wash himself in the Jordan to get healed of an incurable disease

There is reward in the crazy. You may look stupid for pursuing integrity even when people are making money from unjust ways. You may look crazy pursuing sexual purity when sex is all around. You may look crazy when the world is shifting its convictions to allow for relativism while you stick to the bible. 

God is made manifest in such faith. God delights in responding to that crazy faith, not always immediately, not always as we expect him to or the way we want him to, but he responds to it all the same. Abraham's son was spared and the he had descendants as numerous as promised. After walking in circles the wall of Jericho came down. Naaman was healed after washing himself seven times.

Make no mistake, child like faith isn't easy for an adult, we want to know, we want to be certain, we want to logically and rationally work out things, but we must remember we are just children to a God, who is our father, who knows everything, who is in control of everything. He can work against the natural order of things like he did when he split the Red sea for the Israelites. He can move people's hearts to be favorably disposed towards you or your situation without you having to do anything to earn it like he did to King Cyrus towards the Israelites (Ezra 1). Even when other officials tried to foil those plans later on, another King is reminded of the favorable disposition and does the same(Ezra 5-6)

He can thwart the plans of those seeking to harm you like he did when Balaam tried to curse Israel.(Numbers 22-23). He is limitless in how we works unlike our limited ways with our reason. Not to mention, he loves us dearly as his children . Thus, we can respond to him in child-like faith and trust him to come through for us even if doing so appears crazy.  Whether it means waiting on him, whether it means taking a step of faith, whether it means refusing to compromise; child-like faith in our father, God, is the real deal.