From Bob Goff’s “Live In Grace, Walk In Love: A 365-Day Journey”
He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” (Matthew 18:2-3).
If you had asked me what I was aiming for when I was in high school, I would have said I wanted to get out of high school. If you asked me the same question after law school, I probably would’ve said something vague like, “to make a difference in the world.” I wanted to get a job at a good law firm and gain the experience I needed to help people. It hadn’t occurred to me to aim for a life where I could have an office on Tom Sawyer Island at Disneyland and be a part of a movement that builds schools for students in Uganda, helps refugees in Iraq, and teaches little girls in Afghanistan how to read when the religious leaders say they can’t go to school. I wasn’t aiming for these things when I was younger because I hadn’t imagined them yet, and we can’t long for something we can’t already see in our minds.
I think this is one of the reasons Jesus tells us to have faith like children. Kids have wildly creative imaginations. If you ask them what they want to be when they grow up, they’ll say they want to be Aslan from The Chronicles of Narnia or Spiderman so they can rescue people in danger. They plan to live in castles and have superpowers. They aim to be helpers and healers and kind. Kids dream big because the world hasn’t put their imaginations in check yet.
So why did we let the world stifle ours? Sure, we run into the reality of having to pay bills and make it to work on time, but there are endless invitations to join in a life of whimsy if we’ll open our eyeds.
God is not limited by the rules we make up, and He doesn’t want us to be either. Whatever you’re aiming for, God’s better.
What are you aiming for?