Matthew 10:16 “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”

This is a very famous verse, but there’s a difference in nuance between the English and the Japanese that I hadn’t really noticed before, and that is in the term, innocent. I probably have it memorized from a different Japanese translation, but I’ve always quoted it with a term that means “not guilty,” when this translation uses a term that means “childlike.” There’s a real difference! If we are simply focused on being not guilty, we become legalistic, and that is certainly not childlike. Jesus said explicitly, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3) Those are strong words! We are all too prone to be “adult,” to calculate “what’s in it for me,” to try to figure out if we can do something, when God wants us to be His agents and let Him act through us. The list of things Jesus said to do in verse 8 are all beyond merely human effort. You might say that “heal the sick” is possible through modern medicine, but how about raising the dead? We are to exercise every ability and resource God provides, but we’ve got to remember that the actual results depend on God. Many Christian workers have crashed and burned because they set out to serve God in their own strength, instead of yielding themselves to God for Him to use as He pleased. I think that’s a big part of why we need to “change and become like little children.” If we will do that, God will delight to use us for His glory.

As I have written many times, pride has been a major snare for me. God gave me many abilities, but I thought they were mine, not on loan from Him. I thought that if anyone was qualified to serve God, or do anything else, for that matter, I was. How foolish! I don’t know when I stopped being childlike, but it was at a remarkably young age! People have sought “age reversal treatments” throughout human history, with the “fountain of youth” being a prime example, but nothing is impossible for God. He can take even a cynical old geezer and make them childlike! That may be one reason He allows such things as dementia, which are tragic on the surface, but can indeed make people remarkably childlike. I don’t want to force Him to use a technique like that on me. Rather, I want to be submitted and obedient to Him right now, not proud but grateful, so that I will be fully useful to Him in drawing others into His family, His kingdom, for their salvation and His glory.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for the experiences I’ve had with people who were “reduced function” for one reason or another, but as a result, were open to repentance and faith. May I be increasingly childlike by Your definition, so that Your purposes may be freely accomplished in and through me, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!