And Jesus said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:3 (NIV)

Yesterday I discussed the folly of trying to practice faith through a faith-factory lens in which we think Jesus is expecting us to generate faith through the raw materials of our intellect and human effort alone, instead of through the only thing that can, honestly, generate true faith: intimacy with God. It is our intimate connection with Him that reveals to us who He is and what He is doing, both of which supply us with the very faith we need for every situation.

Which, coming from a faith-based culture, seems a bit wrong-headed. We may believe God speaks, and that He often tells us what He is doing. But isn’t the task of having enough faith our responsibility? To suggest God is ultimately the one who supplies us the very faith we need sounds a lot like God doing our job for us. Doesn’t it?

Well, it does – if we are viewing Christianity from an orphan mindset. If we think God’s ultimate objective is to make us independent creatures who rely on our own abilities to accomplish great things on our own and forge our own destiny, then God supplying the faith we need will sound a lot like God doing our job for us. But if God’s real objective is a life of intimacy, characterized by our utter dependence on Him (like a child has with a Father or a Bride with a Bridegroom) then God being the one to supply the faith we need, indeed the One to supply all we need, is not God doing our job for us but instead His job description. He longs to be our everything.

When Jesus says “Have faith in God,” He is not telling us to try harder: He’s telling us to go deeper. He is not giving us a job; He is inviting us into a life of such close intimacy with Himself that we find ourselves commanding the very mountains He Himself is moving, being moved by the very compassion and hope He Himself is feeling, even the very anger at the injustice the Evil One has unleashed upon the world.

The endgame is a life of intimacy. Anything short of this will not only tie us in emotional knots but also lead to a whole lot of spiritual striving. The tragedy in all of this is not just that we are unhappy or unproductive, but rather we are not ourselves. We are alienated from who we truly are. For like a child or a Bride, we were created for intimacy.