Like little children...

"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these " Matthew 19:14

Lately I've been feeling like I'm walking through a pitch black night, so dark that I can't even see my hand in front of my face let alone see where I should place my foot to take my next step. As I've been reflecting on this, wishing I knew what was the best way forward, what I was to do next, I realised that I have no where to put my foot. There are no more steps that I can take...

This may seem a little depressing but it reminded me of the footprints poem and made me think that maybe I wasn't meant to be looking where to put my foot at all. Maybe I wasn't even the one walking. What I needed to realise was that I am actually being carried in the arms of my Heavenly Father who knows the way in the dark, because to him darkness is like day. I needed to trust that God would carry me. I needed to stop trying to take the next step and rest secure in the journey that God was taking me on...

It's the image of a small child, totally dependent upon her dad's strong arms to carry her in the dark night. Yet our problem is that even though we can't see a thing, we keep wanting to jump out of our Father's arms and make it on our own. We want to be grown ups, and grown ups don't need to be carried in the dark because its scary. In fact, grown ups aren't even really allowed to be scared of the dark...

We keep forgetting that the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like children, not grown ups! We can't see where we are heading in life, and sometimes we struggle to even work out where to place our foot for the next step... and its at this point that we need to remember that God knows exactly where we are heading and he knows the best way to get there, our job is to take shelter and comfort in his loving, capable arms. We need to not try to wriggle out of them but let our Father carry us...

This is the humble dependence of a child upon their capable, loving father... and the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these...