Matthew 19:14: But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”
Trusting like a child trusts is not an ignorant kind of trust.
Let me explain. I have noticed this when I carry my youngest daughter down the stairs or lift her up to the ceiling in our house: she trusts me. Her laugh and smile and restful posture in my arms tell me that she has confidence that I won’t let her fall.
But there is something she (thankfully) does not yet know: I am fall-able. I can fall. It is possible that I will fail her in some ways. And, though I am not proud of it, some day I will.
There is a sense that- right now- she would trust anyone who would pick her up and feed her. She doesn’t yet know the difference. She is ignorant in the best possible way to use that word. Not stupid, just not experienced.
The Inevitable Experience
It is experience that causes us to learn not to trust. The experience of being dropped, let down, failed, left in the cold, made an outsider, rejected, stolen from, used, taken advantage of. It is the experience of confidently putting ourselves in the care of someone else - not knowing that we shouldn’t trust them- and feeling of falling when we experience that they fail us.
We begin to think a new thought at that moment: I can’t rely on someone else. We begin to “grow up” at that moment and see the world as it really is. We are no longer ignorant, but we also become unwilling to trust.
When Jesus describes the heart posture that his disciples will have, he describes their attitude as like a child’s attitude. Our perspective, in some way, can be like a child’s perspective. Not silly and unchallenged, but simple and uncomplicated.
We Can Never Go Back
But it is hard, impossible even, to go back to that attitude of ignorant trust. We know too much and have experienced too much failure. We know our own failure to be trustworthy and know that everyone around us is just as fallible as we are. We can never go back.
But, I think Jesus means something different than going back to ignorance. He is not asking us to act as if we trust him while pushing down all of our experiences.
He is asking us to have to have a child-like confidence in him even though all of those experiences. He is inviting us to come to him to learn that even though we have been dropped coming down the stairs by others, he is unable to drop us. Even when those around us have made promises to love us and have broken those promises in a heart-breaking way, he is not able to break his promise to love us and hold us close.
The Invitation to Be Confident in the Trustworthy
Jesus is inviting us to come be held close, bringing all of our experiences and pain and doubt and weariness and unwillingness and say to him “I am here to trust again. Are you trustworthy?”
The rest of life is then to slowly re-learn what we lost: that we were made to rest in another’s strength and love. But, this time it will not be ignorant. This time it will be in the growing knowledge that there is one who is strong enough to carry us down the stairs or lift us up to the ceiling in such a way that we do not fear falling. There is One who is loving enough that he cannot and will not leave us in such a way that that we can laugh and smile and have a restful posture with him like we used to have before all of our experiences.
We can be a child again, but this time it isn’t ignorant. It is a child-like faith in a faithful Jesus, not a childish faith in someone unknown.