Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3)
A holiday can hold a lot of conflicted feelings. It’s a time of warmth and celebration, but sometimes the experience doesn’t match the hope (or the hype). We bring out the China that’s gathered dust in our cabinets since last year’s holiday gathering, and we cook old family recipes that make us nostalgic for a time when things seemed simpler than they do now. Sometimes, however, they can be just as complicated as they’ve ever been.
While we’re stressing out at the adult table about the weird relative or family dynamic, have you noticed there’s no tension at the kids table where they’ve got paper cups for lemonade and plastic forks for mac and cheese? No one there wishes things were different, because cousins and apple pie are close by. Kids always bring an innocence to the party. They show us how to look past the mistakes people made this morning so we can have fun together in the afternoon.
If Jesus were at our holiday celebrations, I bet He would be at the kids’ table. When He was asked complicated questions, He would pick up a child and place them on His lap, then tell everyone to have faith like them. It’s how He responded to questions about heaven and how He responded to a fight about who was the greatest. He always pointed to the kids to lead the way.
(This Thanksgiving), we’re all invited to move over from some of our big arguments to the kids’ table, where Jesus is. We can choose to look past the rules we make up as we grow up. We can go past surface conversations. We can say we’re sorry if that’s needed. Do whatever it takes to get there. There’s a small chair waiting for you.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Author- Bob Goff (Live in Grace-Walk in Love Devotional-Published by Thomas Nelson-2019—p. 379)
