Childlike Faith

My Grandad died when I was thirteen years old. I remember it vividly. I accepted that he was indeed dead, but I also believed that God had power over death and life. All of this faith and I was not even a believer yet. I buried my face in my pillow and cried. My crying turned to screaming and soon I was yelling at God. I did not think that this was wrong because in my mind he had taken my grandad and there was still some negotiating to be done. I mean, what is the point of God raising Lazarus or Jesus from the dead if he did not intend to stay in practice? I remember begging God to bring my grandad back and when I had finished my rant and settled down, I went into the family room. I sat by the phone for the next hour or so honestly expecting a call saying that my grandad was back. Yes, he would be back in his body to finish out his life until such a time as I and God agreed on his rightful departure. How naive, but full of faith I was.

Somewhere on the path of life to adulthood we seem to lose our childlike faith. The same thing happened to Jesus' disciples when he had been preaching to a large crowd. They wanted Jesus to send the people away so that they could buy food. Jesus told them to feed the people. This was an absurd suggestion, but one of the disciples found a boy with five small loaves of bread and two fish. The boy was willing to give the food to feed the over 5000 in attendance. Jesus' followers said that it was not enough.

I remember being like that boy. I believed in the impossible. I believed that I could be anything if I only dreamed it. The disciple's faith is where I find myself too often. I find myself thinking, "Sure it can happen--but it's unlikely."

Jesus prayed for the food and fed everyone with it. Here is the kicker though--he made the disciples pass out the food. They saw first hand what Jesus could do with one boy's faith. Then Jesus asked the disciples to do something strange. He wanted them to pick up the left over scraps that the people had left on the ground. Why would he do this? The food was probably dirty or partially eaten. They could just leave it for the animals since they were outside the city. I believe he did this as a lesson. Each one of them picked up an entire basket of scraps. There were twelve baskets in all. One basket full for each of the disciples that had doubted what God could do.

I hope you will keep in mind that there is always hope where there is faith. We should choose to have the faith of a child. That whimsical belief in a box-less God who can do the impossible.