Faith Like a Child

We were blessed to have family at our home for Thanksgiving this year. My 6 year old niece, Grace, arrived with a very loose tooth. She played with it all afternoon, and finally, Thursday evening she pulled it! It was so fun to share in her excitement in losing her first tooth! We put it in a baggie and her mom wrote a note to the tooth fairy to ask her to leave, in Grace's words,  "my awesome tooth" for her to keep.

My mom, one sister and my brother and I were crazy enough to brave the Black Friday sales through the night. We had a lot of fun, got some great steals, but were exhausted at the end! When we came home Grace was telling us all about the tooth fairy coming, leaving Grace 50 cents under her pillow.

The best part, with a big smile Gracie told me she wanted to give it to us to help us bring Rance home. As I teared up, I told her thanks and how special it was for her to help bring her cousin home.

I feel like so many times when we as Christians hear the phrase "faith like a child" we often equate it to believing, we must have faith, and believe like a child does. But thinking upon Gracie's heart to give, not even thinking about saving her money or what she could buy with it, but giving, made me realize Jesus meant so much more than believing when he said we are to have faith like a child. When God speaks to a child's heart, as he did to Grace's, she did it. Having faith doesn't just mean believing, it means doing.

So many times when God tells us to do something, we question, we doubt, we think about the sacrifice we would have to make, be it our time, money, or other things, and many times, we end up not doing in the end. When we see a touching video about people in the world starving, without clean water, or orphans, we may tear up, we may feel sorry for them, we may think about doing something, but we don't. We make an excuse. I am not talented in that area, I don't have any extra money, I don't have time, I don't want other people to think I am different, or someone else will do it anyways.

Oh to have faith like a child, a pure and innocent heart, uncluttered by the world, selfishness and greed, that we could hear God speak and simply believe and do.