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<\/a><\/div>\nAmen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children,<\/i><\/span>\u00a0you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.<\/i><\/span><\/span>\u00a0\u2013 Mt 18:3<\/span>
<\/span>Jesus urges us\u00a0over and over again\u00a0in the Gospels\u00a0to become like children. But\u00a0to be honest,\u00a0I have always been turned off by the idea.\u00a0To me, becoming like a child suggests some sort of drastic change in personality and way of life. It makes me feel like I need to start dragging a blanket around and sucking my thumb. And honestly, I don\u2019t think the other sisters in the convent would appreciate this.<\/span>
<\/span>However, recently I had a change of mind about this whole idea.\u00a0<\/span>
I was a 3rd grade teacher and one of the things that continually amazed me was a child\u2019s humble capacity to ask questions. Children know they know very little and they are ok with that. They are not afraid of looking stupid.\u00a0And most of the time they ask amazing questions that I have no idea how to answer like, \u201cMs. Noble, when fish fall down a waterfall do they die?\u201d<\/span>
<\/span>The thing about us adults is that we feel like we should know the answers so we are afraid to ask questions. We don\u2019t want to look uninformed or ignorant in front of others. But the thing is, this is really a fearful and faulty way to look at the world. What we do not know is always going to outweigh what we know. We are never going to cease being children in the big scheme of things. If we set ourselves up to look like we know everything all the time, we are setting ourselves up for constant failure.\u00a0<\/span>
<\/span>Think about it:<\/span>
<\/span>First, think of the greatest minds in the world \u2013 Einstein, Aquinas, Newton, etc. What a normal person knows, and is capable of knowing, is nothing compared to the greatest minds in human history.<\/span>
<\/span>Second, if you think you are among one of these geniuses, then compare what you know to the conglomeration of human knowledge over all of human history. One person\u2019s personal knowledge really amounts to nothing, even if you are Einstein or Aquinas.<\/span>
Third, compare your mind to the mind of God which encompasses all human knowledge and then much much more<\/i>. Or, if you don\u2019t believe in God, compare what you know to all that there is to know, including what humans have not discovered.\u00a0<\/span>
This little exercise helped me to realize that in the cosmic scheme of things, we are all\u00a0children<\/i>.\u00a0<\/span>
We all really\u00a0know very little. We may compare ourselves to others and think we are hot stuff but if we are real with ourselves we all fall short, we are all drastically limited in our knowledge, abilities and talents.\u00a0<\/span>
It is hard to admit but we don\u2019t amount to much in the grand scheme of things.\u00a0<\/span>
<\/span>This reality of our smallness can seem to some depressing and overwhelming.\u00a0<\/span>
<\/span>But what is the Christian response to this reality?\u00a0<\/span>
<\/span>When Jesus tells us to be like children, he is not telling us to go back to wearing diapers. He is simply asking us to admit to what we already are.\u00a0Turning and becoming like children does not mean that we need to change.\u00a0It means that we turn and\u00a0embrace our limited nature. Through this, we find freedom from constant pretense and delusions. And from this place of truth, we do change \u2013 because in truth, God is able to transform us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children,\u00a0you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.\u00a0\u2013 Mt 18:3Jesus urges us\u00a0over and over again\u00a0in the Gospels\u00a0to become like children. But\u00a0to be honest,\u00a0I have always been turned off by the idea.\u00a0To me, becoming like a child suggests some sort of drastic change in personality […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a><\/div>\n