How Old Are You?

Is it possible that we are older than God? I was watching Kaylea and Sophie this week, and started compiling a mental list of what it means to be child-like, to be young. Here’s what I have so far…

Full of energy, questions, and ideas.

Love adventure, stories, and all music.

Often think about the future, dreams, hopes, and aspirations.

Love to play and meet new friends.

Love to learn new things.

Sensitive to others, aware of others’ needs.

Honest, open, reflective, insightful.

Laughter accompanies them.

Optimistic and giving.

Resilient, forgiving, and accepting of weakness and mistakes.

I started thinking that those of us who exist inside of time just might be older than our God who exists outside of time. As we age, we tend to harden our beliefs and actions, often becoming set in our routines and structures, in our friends and judgments, and we often say, “I remember when…”

G.K. Chesterton said, “Is it possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes the daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

God’s Story is not an Old Story, but one that continues to be written today—new life, new adventures, new hope, new joy.

Christ invites us to a new covenant, obliterating the first one. In Christ, I am a new creation. Christ gives new life, and invites us in looking forward to a new heaven and new earth. He is making all things new (young?), and is doing new things daily. As a response, we constantly come before Him with new songs.

Maybe that’s why Jesus says that to play in His Kingdom, we must become like children.