
What It Looks Like to Have Faith Like a Child
Each day brings with it new opportunities to learn faith and trust in God. Kids sprinkle in more of these opportunities as we rely on God with their safety and provision (can I hear an Amen). Yet kids can also teach us a thing or two more about faith. Just the other day it was my son’s sincere knowledge of who God is that really struck a cord with me. The Creator who made the rain, can certainly make it stop, and Tim was unashamed to ask for it.
My eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God who controls every circumstance of my life.
George Muller
The rain started to sprinkle on our windshield. We were supposed to go out for a walk and have a picnic, so this was a little bit of a bummer, but what are you going to do? Sometimes it seems easier just to change game plans and move on. Tim had a different plan; he quickly went into action mode.
Tim: We should pray to God. I prayed to God before and He heard my prayer.
I felt slightly hesitant knowing that the rain affects others as well, and pondered what I was going to say to Tim if God didn’t answer his request. Yet, in that nano second of trying to determine what parenting method to go with here, I prayed to myself that God would stop the rain. That Tim’s prayer would be an opportunity to help allow his faith to blossom.
So I responded…
Me: That’s a good idea. Do you want me to pray or you?
Tim: I will pray.
Dear Jesus, thank you for this lovely day you created, please stop the rain so we can go for a walk. In Jesus name. Amen.
Right after he prayed it started raining harder, but the clouds were dissipating. I knew that God had valued the faith of my boy.
And He said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.
Matthew 17:20
The rain completely stopped!
We went on the walk and had a beautiful time.
Faith like a child is a beautiful thing. They know who holds the world in His hands, and it’s not beyond them to trust God for the small and the great things in their life.
As an adult it’s hard; it’s easy to become pragmatic. If the general string of events is leaning towards one direction, it seems more natural to prepare for the seemingly inevitable. Yet, when planning trumps praying, we lose hope in a God that is bigger than our situations. The One and Only God who calms the seas and creates the world by speaking it into existence. Sometimes changing game plans is necessary, but sometimes it is not.
Do you worry that your small scale problems are insignificant… Possibly that you are insignificant? Do you worry that no one is there to hear you? Or that your faith will be tested if God’s answer is not your desired outcome?
I can learn so much from my children. Faith is one of them. Tim trusts God. He has full confidence in God’s ability and God’s love for him. It’s a beautiful thing to be at peace with God and to trust Him with your life, because He is there for you.
This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.
1 John 5:14-15
If you are waiting for a response to a prayer, you are not alone. I am right there with you. We must hold on to faith that God hears us, and that if we ask according to His will it will be granted to us. May our faith not be the thing that hinders our prayers, and may our life reflect the Lord’s prayer “thine will be done” as we humbly submit to His will through this journey we call life.
But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
James 1:6-8
Read another great testimony of faith where George Muller prayed for the fog to dissipate.