Why We Should Have Child-Like Faith

Do you ever (or always) feel like you’re too broken or too unworthy for God’s daily grace? Let alone worthy of entering the gates of Heaven… Don’t worry friend, I’m right there with ya. In fact, I think we’re all right there with ya. God’s grace and forgiveness are so great and so huge and so all-encompassing, it’s also so easy to feel like we’re so-not-good-enough to receive them. The beautiful thing is, that’s the beauty of unconditional love and amazing grace. No matter how sinful, untrusting, or doubtful we are, God keeps pouring His love on us.

He will always be forgiving, even when we feel so sinful that we have trouble forgiving ourselves.

He will always be loving, even when we feel unlovable.

He will always guide our steps, even when we walk away from Him.

He will always have his arms wide open, even when we close our hearts to Him.

His mercy is so amazing it honestly just blows my mind sometimes. We weren’t meant to be able to comprehend it fully.

On my drive home for spring break, I was listening to my Christian worship playlist, which I do often. I try to add new songs every so often to keep it fresh, but I know most of the songs well enough to sing along. When this song came on, it brought me to tears, no lie. I actually cried. Which is saying a lot for me. I’m not one to cry at sad movies or books, and if I’m crying because I’m upset about something I’m basically at my breaking point. So crying out of faith is a big deal for me. It’s happened a few times, but more often at a powerful worship service, not just jamming by myself.

Sometimes when we have these literal come-to-Jesus-moments when we so easily feel God’s grace, I think it’s because we feel overwhelmed by His love. This time specifically, I broke down at these words:

“I will build my life upon Your love

it is a firm foundation

I will put my trust in You alone

And I will not be shaken”

Those lines are part of the chorus, so they play frequently in the song. But for some reason, they really struck me at the end. It was a tears-in-my-eyes-goosebumps-at-the-presence-of-God kinda moment.

I felt so small and so unworthy of His great big love.

I know I have the tendency to complicate things and make things harder than they need to be, which I why I love the idea of ‘child-like faith’.

I recently attended a daily mass at my home parish on a weekday, and it just so happened to be a school mass day for the Catholic elementary school that’s just opened at my parish. Even beyond seeing the way the priest taught faith to the children, it was such a testament to see the way they sang and praised during church.

We can learn so much about faith from children.

They may not fully understand the mass or sacraments, or truly understand the meaning of the words they sang (but do we, really, as adults?), but they haven’t yet lost that child-like faith.

I believe that God sometimes leaves us little (or big) hints or trails of things to follow or notice. It could be a subtle theme of something we’ve been praying about, or a simple reoccurring idea He wants us to pay attention to. For me this morning, I noticed a pattern of this child-like faith.

While I was getting ready in the morning, I listened to some new-to-me Christian worship songs some of y’all commented so kindly on this Instagram post. My dear friend Hannah (also my Confirmation sponsor!) invited me to this daily mass and had recommended the song “Broken Things” by Matthew West. (Not-so-random, but this song was one of my absolute favorites in like, fourth grade, and I still remember jamming to it on repeat, ILY, Matt West.)

The song ‘Broken Things’ goes like this:

If grace is a kingdom
I’ve stopped at the gate
Thinking I don’t deserve to pass through after all of the mistakes I’ve made
But I heard a whisper
As Heaven bent down
Said, “Child, don’t know you that the first will be last and the last get a crown.”

Before I even knew it was the day of the school’s mass (when I thought it was just regular daily mass), God had already planted this idea of the gates of Heaven and the whole ‘first shall be last’ idea. After I came home from mass, a.k.a. right now as I’m writing this, I dug into this idea of child-like faith and came across Matthew 18 (which is all so good, but for times sake I’ll just include a few verses):

Matthew 18: 1-5

The Greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

² He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. ³ And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ⁴ Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. ⁵ And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

Again, God reminds us to follow the lead of His little children. I’m still just basking in the beauty of this verse. We don’t have to be perfect to be loved by God. In fact, He calls us to be ‘lowly’ and ‘last’ to enter His holy kingdom.

I don’t have to feel worthy of building my life on the firm foundation of His love (as what struck me on the drive home). He calls me to build my life on Him anyway.

I don’t have to be first-and-best-at-everything to enter His kingdom, He welcomes the broken and the broken-hearted.

This week, I’m trying to be open to these gold-nuggets-of-grace that God’s leaving little sparkles of for me to notice, and I’m working on giving myself more of the grace He’s already pouring on me.

God calls us all to be saints, but all He truly asks of us is to have faith like little children.

How amazing is that?! If you enjoyed this post (or made it through to the end), please leave me a comment below with one of your favorite Christian songs so I can add it to my playlist.

God is so good. I absolutely love these days when I feel moved to write about my faith, so thanks for being here and for listening. Have a blessed day, friend!