If you've ever been a child
It's time to become insignificant. PLUS: Wanting to grow up, kids in New Testament times, and Mark 10:15.
Raise your hand if you used to be a child.
Now, keep your hand up if you WANT to be a child again.
It’s a tricky choice for me. Childhood means no taxes, no worrying about rent, minimal existential crises. And it’s more socially acceptable to play with toys.
But when I was a child, I had zero desire to stay in that phase. I wanted to be an adult. I wanted freedom to get to make my own choices. Adults, you know, can just buy stuff. And do things. Eat what they want. I didn’t have the most restrictive parents in the world, but there were rules. Being an adult means you have a lot fewer rules to follow.
I kept thinking the “next” thing would open the door to all this freedom that I wanted. When I was 16 on a mission trip to Hungary, I first tasted liberation from my parents. And then in college, I tasted it much more—while many people gained a Freshman 15, I think I was pushing a Freshman 50!
But even as a legal adult, I was never satisfied. I figured grad school, then my first real job, then a PhD—surely, something in the next step would give me the exact life I desired.
Being a kid is all fine and dandy, but what you gain in not having to worry about renewing your car’s tag, you lose because someone else is in control of you. You are dependent in more ways than just for tax purposes.
Yet, the “big truth” from today’s newsletter is that we need to reclaim that dependence if we have any hope of entering the Kingdom of God.
Before we continue…
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And now the spiritual point…
After all that longing for the next big thing—more freedom, more choices—it pains me a bit to repeat that as a follower of Jesus I need to move backwards. Jesus calls us to take the role of a child.
Jesus turns all our expectations upside down in Mark 10:15.
I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.
And similar statements are also found in Matthew 18:3 and Luke 18:17.
This statement comes after some parents brought their kids to Jesus so he could bless them. But for some reason, the disciples don’t want the Messiah bothered.
Jesus, though, was angry. He wanted the children to come to him. He says that the Kingdom of God belongs to these youngsters—Peter’s jaw is probably dropping at this point. Maybe Philip is scratching his head too. In fact, everyone needs to be like them too if they want a piece of the action in the Kingdom.
Jesus grabs those kids, the ones everyone else brushed aside, and makes them the very picture of the Kingdom’s entry requirements.
Now, it’s often a temptation to import modern ideas about children into this statement, but that wouldn’t be respectful to the Biblical text.
In the New Testament world, kids had no rights, no voice, no standing in court. Philosophers lumped them in with slaves, calling them “imperfect,” closer to animals than adults. Kids were only “pre-adults,” their only use was “one day you’ll be useful.”
The kind of posture Jesus is looking for isn’t childlike “innocence” or “wonder” or whatever traits we associate with kids today. Jesus knows that to be a child is to be insignificant. And to be totally dependent.
That’s what he wants us to become.
All this to say, that someone sitting at Jesus’ feet hearing him talk about receiving the Kingdom of God like a child, and especially watching the visual of parents holding very young babies, would likely understand that to receive the Kingdom of God like a child is to take on the state of a child as fully and utterly dependent on God. It’s to recognize that we are imperfect and lacking and ultimately unable to navigate the world. We need God. We need our Father.
Total dependency is hard enough in non-spiritual areas, but it is amplified with God. I certainly didn’t like to rely on my parents for life necessities when I was young. It’s much harder to continue, even as an independent adult, to rely on God.
There’s a reason another way to talk about “faith” is “trust.” The call of being a faithful follower of Jesus is not just to do all the right things, but to have the proper attitude. An attitude that says, “Thy will be done.” It’s an attitude that allows us to do a metaphorical trust fall into the arms of God.
In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, right after talking about children receiving the Kingdom of God, all authors include Jesus’ discussion with the so-called “rich young ruler.” It’s the perfect foil. Children have no status and are completely in need; the rich man, however, has everything—but it’s precisely that he does which prevents him from embracing the Kingdom of God.
By choosing littleness, we reject the world’s power plays. We trade status for surrender, ego for utter reliance on our Father. That’s the same stance the rich young ruler failed to adopt when he clung to his wealth.
His treasure chest became his barricade.
So here’s the point: stop chasing the next milestone—the fancier title, the heftier paycheck, the Instagram highlight reel. Those things only reinforce self-reliance. Instead, lean into dependence. Admit you can’t earn your way in. Throw your hands up and say, “I need you, Jesus.”
Approach with a child’s heart and status—a posture of complete trust, need, and humility. Come as a spiritual infant, and you’ll discover a fullness of life no adult checklist can deliver.
That’s the paradox of Jesus’ upside-down kingdom: in our weakness, we find strength; in giving up everything, we gain everything.
Be childish,
Jake Doberenz
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