For several years, Howard and Kim and their two children joined other families on an annual short-term mission trip to Quinhagak, Alaska, a remote village 350 miles below the Arctic Circle and just a mile off the Bering Sea. Arriving their first year, the adults — about 18 of them — gathered in a school building to pray and strategize about how to interact with this Yupik indigenous people group. How do we connect? How do we relate? Yupik is their primary language, so how do we build relationships? At some point during their contemplation, the adults looked outside the windows at the dilapidated playground where the Yupik kids and their young guests from the lower 48 were “having the time of their lives,” truly bonding in the universal language of play. Kim recalls, “It was like God saying, ‘Just be like little kids. Humble yourself, just relate.’”
We tend to complicate things, don’t we? Relationships, foremost. Ultimately our openness comes down to this: Can I trust your character, and can I expose mine? The children of Quinhagak and their new friends showed what it means to live “Yes” and “Yes,” naturally connecting, relating, and building relationships. And wasting no time in the process! It recalls an incident when twelve gatekeeping disciples attempted to bar children from Jesus’ presence. “[Jesus] was indignant. He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’”1 Isn’t this the kind of open relationship God desires to have with all of us — joyful, unhindered, belonging, receiving? There was amid these children no second-guessing of Jesus’ character, nor was their any holding back of their own, just eagerness and trust, delighting in Him who delights in us.
This is submission of self in confidence to Christ. This is the maturity of childlike trust. Then may we, too, “humble ourselves, and just relate.” With Jesus.
Epilogue. “And [Jesus] took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.”2 May He do the same with us, His children, today.
O Lord, You are compassionate and good, humble and kind, truthful and forgiving. Remind us each day of Your boundless love for us, that we would eagerly, openly and completely trust You with our very lives. In Christ we pray. Amen.
1 Mark 10:14-15 NIV
2 Mark 10:16 NIV
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Paul Nordman—Author 