Jake's Deep Thought...

Jake wrote this a while ago... I thought I would share it. Some of you may have read it before.


The people brought children to Jesus, hoping he might touch them. Thedisciples shooed them off. But Jesus was irate and let them know it:"Don't push these children away. Don't ever get between them and me.These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom. Mark this: Unless you accept God's kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you'll never get in." Mark 10:14-15 (The Message)

I am certain we are all somewhat familiar with the above verse. I know I have heard and read it several times during the course of my life as a Christian. But what does it really mean? I thought I had an idea of what it meant and I did to a certain extent. You need tobe like a child to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Be like a child? How does one accomplish such a feat? As we were growing up I'm sure at one point or another we were told that we were acting like a child(sometimes Delilah says I still act like a child) ;-). When we were told this it was usually because we were having a temper tantrum for some reason or another. Some of us have children the rest of us don't. For those of us that have children, have you just sat and watched them play by themselves? I have watched Jude from afar (well not really from that far away, he is in the sun room and I am in the living room) as so not to bother him. I have sneaked into his room when he is suppose to be taking anap but instead he his playing in his bed, singing to himself, reading a book (he really can't read, that I know of), playing with his matchbox cars, etc. It is an amazing thing to watch a child at play. For the rest of us that don't have children I encourage you to visit ahouse that has children and just watch them play by themselves, I am sure you will understand what I'm trying to get at here. They play without a worry in the world, carefree. It is just their toys and them.We have all at one point asked God to speak to us. I have been doing a lot of this lately. Last night at our church, we had a praise andworship concert. I took Jude with me because he loves music and his baby sitter is a lead singer in the band. When the music started to play Jude was dancing around and clapping his hands, before I knew ithe was in the aisle having a grand ole time. At one point I lookedover at Jude dancing in the aisle and he had his hands lifted up to to God praising him. I thought it was kind of odd that he was doing that because our Sunday morning worship is not even close to raising our hands. There was a gentleman and a women sitting across the aisle from me. The gentleman had his hands raised in praise. Jude was mimicking what the gentleman was doing. At this point the above verse became so much clearer to me and it took God using Jude to clarify itf or me. After last night I believe as Christians we ought to praise God without a care in the world. Like a child at play. We shouldn't be concerned with what others might think about us praising God.

Jake