to be like children

My friends Heather and Ash have two delightful children named Sarah and Kate. On Thursdays H & A go out for dinner and to a meeting, and I watch S & K. We usually make dinner and play some games,and there is always some sort of piggy-back/wrestling/lauren-spins-kate-through-the-air-until-she-can't-see-straight experience. We laugh a lot, and have a lot of fun.

Last night, we decided we needed to take a walk toward Sarah's school. We gleefully and gayly headed out, doing a bit of running, a bit of skipping, (a bit of wearing S & K out so that they would go to bed with ease). We remarked on how fun it is to skip down a never-ending hill. We did not stop to think about what that meant for the trip home.

Alas, we did not make it far up the hill until Kate decided she had had enough. Since I wanted to get home some time before she turns 5, I hoisted her on up and away we went. We stopped a third of the way up the never-ending hill for Sarah to look through the grass alongside the road. We stopped two-thirds of the way for Sarah to check the time on my phone and to subsequently snap a picture of Kate and me (decidedly not our best angle...).

I am glad she did though, because it gives me an excuse to reflect here on something I have been thinking about recently. My Life Group (bible study) this week was talking about the verse in Matthew where Jesus tells his disciples that to be the greatest in the kingdom they need to have faith like a child. We talked about what this might mean, about what it means to be child-like.

I found myself thinking about Kate, who is at the height of her child-like-ness. When I arrive at their house, both Sarah and Kate run to greet me. Sarah usually hugs me and then moves away, but Kate has taken to leaning herself against me with her arms up. This is my cue to lift her so that she can just drape herself over me. The thing is, she knows that she is loved, and she trusts that I am a safe place for her. She doesn't question it, and she has no real self-consciousness or boundaries as she puts her chin in my neck, pats my face, and just loves me back.

So, what would it look like if we loved God like that? If we just draped ourselves all over him, without boundaries or self-consciousness? (I realize I am neglecting to mention the whole holy-fear-factor, but go with me here....) What if we put our chin in his neck, patted his face, and just loved him back?