Humble Like a Child: Seeing Humility as a Strength

When was the last time you spent time with a child? Maybe it’s been years, maybe a few days, maybe you’re holding a child as you read this. Children add much-needed entertainment to our lives. When you spend time with a child, you never know what is going to come out of their mouth. Normally when people express this sentiment, they are thinking of the negative, worrying that a child will say something inappropriate. However, children are also capable of expressing positivity in a way that makes most adults uncomfortable.

In today’s blog post, we will examine the topic of humility as it relates to children. What does it mean when Jesus says we must be humble like a child to enter the Kingdom of God? Let’s first begin with our passage:

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. - Matthew 18:1-5

The ‘Wow!’ Factor

Recently my wife and I had some family over to our new house. As the time approached, we began to hypothesize how some of the smallest members of the family would react to our place. The time arrived, and the children came rushing in. They went up and down the stairs as if they had found their own personal mountain to climb. They opened every door and inspected every room to ensure this was a safe place. Upon inspection, the oldest of the kids approached my wife and I.

“Jonathan! Bethany! Your house is so cool!” He exclaimed. It seems we had passed their test.

This is the first evidence of a child’s humility, something I like to call the ‘Wow!’ Factor. While sometimes a child speaking their minds leads to awkward moments (like when five minutes later that same child told us we needed to fill a hole in our walls), children often feel a freedom to hand out compliments, a freedom that most adults do not feel. Why is this? In his book You’re Only Human author Kelly Kapic gives us his reasoning why that is:

“Children don’t hide awe; they express it. Whether they see a giant rock, a majestic lion, or even a juggler who keeps ten things in the air at once, children don’t hesitate to praise. “Wow, that’s amazing.” They are open to their smallness and to the vastness of God and his world.”

Isn’t that beautiful? Children don’t feel the need to compare themselves like their adult counterparts do. When they see something good, they feel the need to call it out. How many of us could learn from them? Is it not because of our pride that we withhold compliments from others? What would our lives look like if we had the courage to tell people how brave, how thoughtful, how inspiring they are to us? It all begins with humility. When we understand the vastness and beauty of God’s creation, we are free to encourage others instead of comparing with them.

Asking For Help

As I mentioned above, my wife and I are new to homeownership, which has come with its share of humbling moments. A few weeks after we moved in, I was on a mission to eliminate every stray wire in a basement that felt like a jungle of useless cords. At first, I was careful, making sure to trace every wire back to its source. But human as I am, eventually my patience ran out, and I began to develop my philosophy of “cut now, ask questions later.”

After about an hour of cutting these wires, I was hanging out upstairs when I noticed that our home was significantly hotter than it had been in previous days. At first, I thought these two events were unrelated, but as it grew hotter and hotter, it began to dawn on me that I had somehow broken our Air Conditioner. As I examined the cords I had taken down, I traced one back to our unit.

Let me be frank: I felt incredibly stupid; I did not use kind words with myself that afternoon. Even worse, I knew what I had to do: I had to ask for help. I reached out to my handy father-in-law, and he graciously came over and helped me reattach the cut wires.

You can probably guess the connection between children and humility. Unlike me, children have no problem asking for help. Because of their small size, asking for help is as natural to them as breathing. Again, Kapic is helpful here in helping us see the spiritual point. He says, “To humble yourself like a child, as Jesus demands of us, is not to become mindful of your sin, but to be fundamentally aware of your need.”

I love Kapic’s definition of humility because it frees us from the burden of thinking that to be humble is to downplay our strengths and highlight our weaknesses. Rather, he shows us that to be humble is to approach God with childlike wonder and a childlike understanding of our own needs. We need not merely be mindful of our sin (though that is a great start!), but we need to take this mindfulness to the throne of God our Father.

In light of our sin, we humbly come to Him and say, “God, I cannot save myself. I need you to step in.” Just like a child at a fast food restaurant looks up at their parents when the cashier reads them their total, we must learn to look up at God in the face of our sin.

Conclusion

As we wrap up this week’s post, here are some reminders of what we’ve learned:

• We can learn much about humility by spending time with children.

• Humility frees us to look up to others and give voice to the great qualities we see in them.

• Humility frees us to be small, reminding us that we need God’s help.

Finally, here are some questions to ask yourself to better understand where you’re at with this topic of humility:

• How attractive is your definition of humility? Do you aspire to be humble like a child?

• What are some ways humility would be freeing to you? How would humility enable you to encourage others with kind words?

• Have you properly understood your need before God? Have you expressed your need to Him lately?

Thanks be to God that He gives small people like us a place to live and thrive and praise God His Kingdom is a place for the weak.