O, how we love you, Lord! Yet, we can become so fogged up in many deep things that we forget the first commandment to love you with all of our heart, mind, and soul.

But how simple that commandment is — so simple that it has been designated to reside within the heart of a child. You tell us that we must become like little children. You say that the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. Little children are not fogged up with lofty concepts, or great ideas, or too many responsibilities. They live in the present, moment by moment. They are born with the gift of trust. They know their parents and they cling to them. They relish in security. They laugh and play.

Give us back our childlike simplicity that we lost over the years when we were wounded and began to build walls to protect ourselves. Or perhaps it was when we grew up and became self-sufficient enough not to need an adult to lean upon.

With growth comes responsibility and independence. Too much of these creates a long road between us and the cross. Sure, we are saved, but we continually resist running to the cross because of the self-sufficiency ingrained within our nature. A child is not self-sufficient. A child does not know pressure. A child doesn’t know about achieving. A child does know about unquestioning trust.

O Lord, take the yoke that adulthood brings to us within our modern individualistic society. Set us free, Lord, and let us learn the art of childlikeness. Teach us what it means to be mature believers, yet children of the Father. Set us free from the temptation to view our circumstances as an indicator of Your love for us. Deliver us from the lies that prohibit us from loving You as children — lies of perfectionism, lies of independence, self-sufficiency, and inability to trust.

©2005 Masterpiece of the Wilderness, Deanna Deering