Embarrassing Memory Alert: In middle school, I was a part of the National Junior Beta Club. Our school was invited to take part in an event where some of us competed in athletic exercises. I was assigned to participate in the creative writing exercise. The administrators gave us two different essay topics but we were only to write one of them. I chose the topic I felt most interested in and knew the most about and began writing. However, when I turned in my composition, the proctor frowned and informed me that only a handful of students were meant to write on this topic and everyone else (including me) were meant to write on the other topic. My composition was immediately disqualified. I was embarrassed at my error and frustrated that I had not understood the instructions. This was an academic event and I was representing my entire team and school. All the other students there seemed to understand the instructions given. How could I have been the only one to be confused and write the wrong essay?

Sometimes, instructions are not easy to follow. Sometimes we are given two different directives that seem to contradict one another. How do we decipher these apparent contradictions to make sense of the truth behind them?

Recently, I have been wrestling with a particular truth of Scripture. On the surface or to the outside onlooker, the Bible can be considered full of contradictions. Things do not always make sense at first. But if we look deeper, we will find that opposing statements found in Scripture are actually paradoxes. A biblical paradox consists of two apparently incongruent statements that point to one eternal truth. The truth in question I have been pondering is this: To be spiritually mature, you must have faith like a child. 

As a child who came to faith early, I always found comfort and reassurance that Jesus welcomed the little children and encouraged others to have belief the way a child would. But now that I’ve grown into adulthood and have been a believer for decades, I continue to pursue spiritual maturity. 

As much knowledge as I have gained, as much as I have experienced and ministered, as much as I have spent personal time with Jesus, I want to retain the childlike faith that I received all those years ago. 

Before we go any further, allow me to share some key verses that point out both of these directives to believers: faith of a child and maturity of an adult.

Matthew 18:2-4, “He called a small child and had him stand among them. 3 “Truly I tell you,” he said, “unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child—this one is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Hebrews 6:1a, “Therefore, let us leave the elementary teaching about Christ and go on to maturity…”

Jesus clearly loves the little children. But He calls us to press on to maturity. To move beyond elementary teaching – or infant’s milk, as Hebrews calls it – for solid food. So the question remains, how do I have faith like a small child and press on to spiritual maturity simultaneously? 

I believe Paul sheds greater light on the matter for us in his letter to the Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 14:20, “Brothers and sisters, don’t be childish in your thinking, but be infants in regard to evil and adult in your thinking.”

Based on what Paul is saying here, it is a both/and scenario for us. We are to think maturely. We are to act wisely. We should be shrewd and disciplined and discerning. But we must also believe eagerly, freely, and whole-heartedly. 

Specifically, we are to be infants in regard to evil. Meaning, we should flee from the devil. Make no room in your life for temptation. Run to Jesus. 

Isn’t this what little children do, when they are afraid of monsters under the bed or shadowy threats hiding in their closet? They do not go hunting the evil down but rather flee the scene immediately in search of their parent. This is what we are to do when the evil one appears in the form of temptation or false teaching or downright attack. We run to Jesus.

We are to have childlike faith. This is vastly different from child-ish faith. Child-ish faith is shallow, easily distracted and immature. We do not choose between innocent faith and spiritual maturity. In reality, the two are married to one another. 

Childlike faith is simple. Jesus loves us and died for our sins. We believe this. Grown up faith is more complicated, full of gray areas and rules to follow and hoops to jump through. As we mature and grow in our faith, that faith should remain childlike. 

Contemporary Christian Music artist, Nichole Nordeman, shares a similar desire in her song, “Help Me Believe.” She writes:

Take me back to the time

When I was maybe eight or nine and I believed

When Jesus walked on waters blue

And if He helped me, I could too if I believed

Before rationale, analysis

And systematic thinking

Robbed me of a sweet simplicity

When wonders and when mysteries

Were far less often silly dreams

And childhood fantasies

Help me believe”

If you struggle with childlike faith, I encourage you to take a lesson from these lyrics. Pray and ask the Lord to help you believe. As the father of the demon-possessed boy prayed in Mark 9, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” Like this father, you will see miraculous transformation in your life – when childlike faith takes root in you. 

Do not abandon childlike faith for spiritual maturity. For in truth, you cannot have the one without the other.