Little children look
so happy and bouncy all of the time.
Even after a long day at school or playing outside, they still never
seem to lose that little spark that makes them incredibly joyful. What have we done as we've gotten older
that's made us into the sad and lifeless beings that we've become? We're supposed to be simple like the children
and yet there's something that comes into our hearts and weighs us down so that
we don't have that privilege. We're
never as teachable as children, we're never as trusting, never as loving. There's something in the mentality of a child
that we tend to lose somewhere in the realm of becoming an adult. Or maybe instead of losing something, we just
gain too much. We gain the hurt of being
screwed over too many times by those we've trusted, we gain sorrow from the
deaths of those we love, we gain the burden of being independent. Maybe we don't lose our innocence or our
faith in others, maybe we just bury it deep and it becomes so intertwined with
the heaviness of our decisions that we don't even notice it still exists. It's quite possible that the things we seem
to have "lost" is really just an excuse for those things that we've
gained and now seem to cloud who we really are.
Face it, very few
people in this world like to be genuine.
Being genuine requires you to be vulnerable and it's rare that we like
to be in that position of vulnerability.
It hurts to be open and let people see who you really are when most of
those people either use you until they've had enough, or really just don't care
who you are. Once in a great while, a
person will take the time to dig down deep and figure you out and then you know
that you have someone worth keeping; someone worth all of your time, because
they truly care about who you are and what makes you into the person that they
see. But since those times tend to be
few and far between, we sometimes give up on the hope that they still
exist. And that's where we fall apart and
lose the inside spark. That's where our
hearts change from the heart of an expectant and hopeful child, to the bitter
and hard heart of someone we associate with maturity and strength; when this
change occurs, we magically transform into an "adult". How messed up is that? We spend our childhood years pretending to be
grown up and being pushed to be better people, but to actually become
adults, we're asked to harden our hearts to some of the very things that make
us the people we are. It's no wonder
that this world is going down the tubes; if everyone is fake, what do we have
to believe in anymore?
Jesus. That’s the one thing that I have to believe
in. The one word that has power over my
life, the one man who is the Son of God; the one Person to ever change the
world in every single way. People
occasionally scorn me and say that I’m childlike and naive about things, but
they don’t realize how much they’re complimenting me! When I’m childlike, I’m filled with such a joy
of life and a want to serve my incredible Creator! I’d rather have a young soul in an old body,
just bursting with the love of Jesus, than have a young body with an old soul,
dead and withered. So, I will become
this thing we label an “adult”, but I will try and approach it with a childlike
spirit and a soft heart. Because, after
all, Jesus is still here for me to believe in. :)
