Childlikeness

A father is delighted when his little one, leaving off her toys and friends, runs to him and climbs into his arms. As he holds his little one close to him, he cares little whether the child is looking...

[M]y husband, Nick, tells a story of when he was a teenager riding his bike with his friends, and his chain came off his bike. Nick took the bike to his dad, who said, “I'll fix it, you watch”. Hi...

Grace substitutes a full, childlike and delighted acceptance of our need, a joy in total dependence. The good man is sorry for the sins which have increased his need. He is not entirely sorry for the ...

We’re little children wandering the aisles of the internet because we’ve lost the presence of our loving parent. We are desperate for the attention of a good Father who sees us. We have no idea how to...

I have a photo of one of my children: on a day of pure sunshine, he is running down the hillside, leading with his chest, his smile and stride wide as his speed picks up. Running is pure delight. Agai...

Desire is part of what it means to be a child, as implied in Jesus’ words to his disciples when he tells them, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never ente...

In his book of sermons titled The Magnificent Defeat, Frederick Buechner mentions two qualities of childlikeness. First, children have no fixed preconceptions of reality. If someone tells them that ...

Children, in particular, are driven to create—if we just nudge them in that direction. They thrive in a world stocked with raw materials. But too often, and with the best of intentions, we fill their ...

We learn from Jesus that we should not look down on children because they are not fully grown and hence are of lower social status than adults. Like Jesus, we should treat children with respect and di...

Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven.

Pretty much all the honest truth telling there is in the world is done by children.

In nothing is the child so righteously childlike, in nothing does he exhibit more accurately the sounder order of simplicity, than in the fact that he sees everything with a simple pleasure, even the ...

There’s a cartoon that makes a profound statement about happiness. The first panel shows happy schoolchildren entering a street-level subway station—laughing, playing, tossing their hats in the air. T...

May all your expectations be frustrated, may all your plans be thwarted, may all your desires be withered into nothingness, that you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and sing an...

A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.