"Be as little children"

When I was a little kid, I had a Bible. Obviously, I have a Bible now as well, but I had a different Bible back then. This Bible was one directed at young children. It only had stories in it; none of the Law or anything that a child would not be able to pay attention to. Not only that, but the stories were simplified. The story of the Crucifixion was told in a chapter entitled 'Sadness', while the Resurrection's chapter was called 'Surprise!'. They were interspersed with colourful drawings that didn't have too much going on in them. It was a simple introduction to the main stories of the Bible.

Since then, I have started reading a Bible that isn't aimed at young children; the kind of Bible that adults read. This Bible doesn't just have the important stories from the Bible in it, but also the Law and things that a child would not be able to pay attention to. Yet a few weeks ago I fished out my first Bible and started looking through it. It was incredibly refreshing.

In Matthew 18:3, Jesus says that we should become "as little children", or have child-like faith. The initial reaction of most to this piece of Scripture is to assume that it means we should be childish, or stupid. But it doesn't mean this at all. When I was looking back at the child-aimed Bible, with the knowledge of the adult Bible that I hadn't had when I had first read it, I found that the simplicity of the stories was not annoying, or childish, or stupid. The way that it was written made it very easy to believe. When we read an adult Bible, it's easy to read something and doubt. We question the intention behind it, instead of just accepting it as it is.

As well as re-reading a few of the stories as they are told in the young children's Bible, I have recently started reading the Chronicles of Narnia. One thing struck me about the first two books (I'm currently working my way through The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe): the adventures are undertaken by children. At first, it seems as though this is only the case because the books are aimed at children. But then I started thinking, and I had another thought, another explanation behind the age of the heroes and heroines of the Chronicles of Narnia: they are children because an adult would never have accepted that they had stumbled through a wardrobe and ended up in a magical realm called Narnia with talking Beavers and a Lion who comes to the rescue. Only a child - or children, in this case - would accept this at face value, without questioning it.

And I understood the importance of having child-like faith. If you try and look at Scripture or faith like an adult would, you question it more, whereas if you take the approach of a child you are more accepting, more believing. That isn't to say gullible, as children are often see the world in a much more wonderful way than older people do.

So child-like faith is indeed very important, and it's a lovely thing to experience. If faith is questioned, it becomes weaker. If in God's eyes we are His children, then we cannot expect to be able to look at faith as an adult, because in God's eyes, we aren't.