Many years ago, my family lived in Stanthorpe. That’s
where I did my first four years of schooling, and we went back there for five
years of ministry. Some of you think Stanthorpe is a cold place, but then, if
you have spent all your life in
Dad had spent time in Chermside hospital with tuberculosis. A cold dry place was said to be good for him to get better. Kind friends from the church had loaned us a house. Other friends loaned us a cow. We had chooks and a vegetable garden – and fresh fruit in season. Dad was a minister and in those days the Church had no special provision for sick ministers. But I am sure my two older brothers and myself had no idea just how tight for money our family was at that time.
Besides being a cold place and growing apples, pears,
plums, apricots, peaches, nectarines and grapes, Stanthorpe is the centre of
the Granite Belt. There is plenty of granite rock elsewhere in the state – this
area has its share. But the soil in the Granite Belt is all decomposed granite
and the farmer has to work his farm around large rocks too big to move. A visit
to the Granite Belt is incomplete without going to
The National Parks hadn’t been opened in my younger days. But I do recall a rock in the path on the way to our front gate. The path had a bend to get around it. I don’t recall that rock from our later time in Stanthorpe, but, if it is still there, I suspect it has somehow got disappointingly smaller than I remember it. It was an important rock to young lads. It was the castle whose kingship was contested regularly!
Do kids still play “king of the castle”? Grown-ups do! All that pushing and shoving, talking and arguing… all to show that I am the greatest! That’s why politicians are either pleased or disappointed by opinion polls! Who’s “king of the castle” at the moment?
Did you know it was a running argument between the
disciples of Jesus? And even when Jesus had died, come to life again and was
about to hand all the responsibility over to them, they still had a big
question to ask him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom
to
But going back to Matthew 18… when the disciples asked Jesus who was the greatest, we hear Jesus reply, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 18.3-4). It is as if he was saying, “My dear friends, you won’t even make it unless you change and become like little children!”
It wasn’t so very long after this that some parents brought their little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. “But the disciples rebuked those who brought them” (Mt. 19.13). They hadn’t got the message! They hadn’t understood child-like faith or the gravity of putting any cause of stumbling in the way of one of these little ones.
“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (v. 14).
That doesn’t mean we have to be children – or to be
childish – to enter the
The old words tell out the important truth –
Jesus loves me! This I know
for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him belong –
they are weak but he is strong!
Tragedy is that so many of us think we have outgrown that childlike faith. We may have given up the childish game, “king of the castle” but we’re still busy proving ourselves and trying to become the greatest!
Then take the words of Charles Wesley’s hymn –
Give me the faith which can remove
and sink the mountain to a plain;
give me the childlike praying love,
which longs to build thy house again;
thy love, let it my heart o’erpower
and all my simple soul devour. (AHB 479)
Now there’s someone who has a mature meaty adult outlook – no “kid stuff” here. And life is such a stretch that he wants a faith to match! But notice that he prays “give me the childlike praying love.”
Do you know that Jesus loves you? Can you accept that as simply and directly as a child accepts a hug? Jesus loves me? Hold on a minute! We don’t mind believing in God, provided we can hold him at a distance! That may be our point of view, but… do you know that Jesus loves you?
Have you accepted Jesus as your Saviour and Friend – just as easily as a child can reach up and accept a trusted hand to help them? We don’t accept things easily. We have to earn our place in the world. No handouts – not even from God! But it is the only way, so … Have you accepted Jesus as your Saviour and Friend – just as easily as a child can reach up and accept a trusted hand to help them?
In so many ways children are just watching us to follow our lead in life. The big question is, who are we following? What do we feed our minds with? Are we getting regular input from the Scriptures, the Word of God? Do we look to Jesus as Lord of our lives?
Too often we have “suffered the children” – which isn’t what the King James Version meant anyway! We have put up with them, instead of learning from them the simple childlike faith that receives God’s love and grace.
Don’t put up adult barriers! Let them come! And let us come too!
© Peter J. Blackburn, Halifax &
Ingham, 15 November 2009
Except where otherwise noted, Scripture
quotations are from the New International Version, © International Bible
Society, 1984.
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