I started a new series yesterday – Soul Detox. It is all about giving attention to the heart, that invisible, intangible part of us from which we live, love, lead and learn. Every experience we encounter in our lives passes through the heart. It is the sphere in which relations happen and relationships are broken.
Because of the myriad of life’s experience, sometimes our hearts become weary and old. We lose the childlikeness of the heart. We lose that sense of awe and excitement that comes with the heart of a child.
In Matthew 18, Jesus inverts the long-standing relationships between children and older people. The disciples asked Jesus, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of God?” Jesus picked a little child out of the crowd and said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Most religious traditions look to the wise old sage as the epitome of spirituality, but Christianity is child-centric. Children are the centrepiece of Jesus theology. Christians are called to childlikeness.
It’s important to understand the difference between childlikeness and childishness, so let me make the distinction. I Corinthians 13:11 says, “When I was a child I thought like a child, I talked like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”
The word “childish” means “simple-minded.” Some people are unwilling to deal with doubt. They’ve never wrestled with paradox. They’ve never been stretched by the tension of opposites. They have a childish faith - it’s simple-minded. Hebrews 6:1 says, “Let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity.” I Corinthians 14:20 puts it this way, “Stop thinking like children. In regards to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.” We need to avoid childishness at all costs, but we’re called to childlikeness.
Somehow we need to rediscover the child within. We need to find healing for our hearts so that we become child-like again. Jesus said, “Unless you change and become like little children you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” The King James version says, “Unless ye be converted.” The words “change” and “converted” come from the Greek word strepho which means “to reverse.”
One dimension of spiritual growth is reversing the aging process, not the physical effects of aging, but the spiritual and psychological affects. Childlikeness is rediscovering the heart of a child in our lives again - the person we were before we were pressured by peers or polluted by the harsh realities of life, before we developed limitations and assumptions, before we had egos and alter egos, before the wounds and pains in life turned us into sceptics and critics, before the toxins of the past got lodged into our hearts, making our hearts to age too quickly.
Conversion kick starts two processes: Christlikeness and childlikeness. Spiritual maturity is becoming like Christ and becoming like little children by returning to the heart of a child.
Jesus says, “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” The humility of children is disarming. There is no pride or pretence. (Pretension damages the heart). There are no inhibitions or hidden agendas. When you’re around children you don’t need to “put on airs.” You can just be yourself.
Here’s a final thought. Ashley Montague said, “I want to die young at a ripe old age.” This has become the new theme of my life as I approach 50. As we get older we should get younger in our hearts. And that only happens has we continually allow the Holy Spirit to detoxify our souls.
Do you want to return to childlikeness?
Journey back to your heart. Detoxify your soul.
