Return to Childhood

“Backward, turn backward, O time in your flight. Make me a child again just for tonight.” Have you ever longed, as did poet Elizabeth Allen, to return, even briefly, to the days of your childhood? Days when you did not have the cares and burdens of life? Food was provided and prepared; clothes were hung in closets or lay folded in drawers; scraped knees were bandaged. Why were we so free of care and worry? Because we had a father (and/or mother) who took care of us, providing all our needs. We had no reason to worry.

Have you ever wondered why the Bible calls believers “children’? Could it be because we still have a father providing for us? A heavenly Father! Much is said in Scripture about children. Matthew 18:3 says unless we turn from our sins and become as little children, we will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. He is not saying we are to be childish but child-like. In what ways are we to be child-like?

Children, by nature, are trusting. If you say it, they believe it. A little boy was playing in the hayloft on his grandfather’s farm when the barn caught fire. His only escape was to jump from the door of the hayloft to the ground, but he was scared – it was such a long way to the ground! Then his daddy appeared below and said, “Jump, Son, I’ll catch you.” The little boy jumped, trusting his father could and would do what he said. Think how different our lives would be if we really believed God, our Heavenly Father, could and would do everything He said. You may say, “But I do believe!” Do you? Enough to jump?

Children are imitators. When our son was young, he wanted some boots just like his dad’s. One day, I could not find his boots anywhere. After searching the entire house, I found them in the bottom of his dad’s closet, right beside his dad’s boots. We are told to “Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children.” Live a life filled with love following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered Himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God’ (Ephesians 5:1-2). “…Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world of crooked and perverse people’ (Philippians 2:14).

Oh, to be a child again…but I am a child! “… To all who believed on Him and accepted Him, He gave the right to become children of God. They are born, not of a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God” (John 1:12-13).

That makes us a child forever – His child!