Become like a child
The greatness of the small
When the disciples asked Jesus who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven, he answered not with words but with a living illustration. He called a little child, set the child in the middle of them, and said: unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom. The measure of greatness, he says, is childlikeness.
What is it about a child that Jesus commends? Not innocence, exactly, but lowliness — a child in that culture had no status, no rights, no power, no achievements to boast of, and depended utterly on others for everything. To become like a child is to embrace that lowliness and dependence: to let go of our status and self-importance, and to come to God with empty hands, as those who have nothing to bring and everything to receive.
This is a stunning reversal of the disciples' question. They wanted to know how to climb to greatness; Jesus pointed downward, to the small and dependent child. The death of self includes this glad return to childlikeness — the abandonment of our grown-up pretensions to importance and self-sufficiency, and the recovery of a humble, dependent, trusting smallness before God. Greatness in the kingdom is not how big you make yourself, but how willing you are to become small.
“Whoever therefore will humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
— Jesus, to his disciples — Matthew 18:4 (WEB)
Become like a little child — lowly, dependent, with nothing to defend or boast of — recovering the trusting smallness that is greatness in the kingdom.
“Unless you turn, and become as little children, you will in no way enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Grown-up life is one long campaign to become big — accumulating status, rights, and achievements to prove we are something — and Jesus answers it by setting a child in the middle of the room. The interior work is to gladly surrender that whole campaign — to become childlike rather than childish, laying down our pretensions to importance and self-sufficiency and coming to God with the empty, dependent hands of a child, where the kingdom turns out to belong to the small.
This week, practice childlike lowliness: come to God with empty hands, admitting your dependence rather than your accomplishments, and let go of one piece of grown-up self-importance, embracing the smallness Jesus calls great.
The flesh keeps us climbing toward a greatness built on self-importance and self-sufficiency — the precise opposite of the small, dependent child Jesus blesses. But the one willing to grow little, to come empty-handed and trusting, walks straight into the kingdom the climbers keep missing, where greatness is measured by how readily you became small.
The disciples wanted to know how to climb to greatness, and Jesus answered by pointing in the opposite direction — to a little child set in their midst. Greatness in the kingdom, he said, belongs to the one who becomes like this child. Not childish, but childlike: lowly, dependent, with no status to defend and no achievements to boast of, coming with empty hands to receive.
This overturns the whole adult project of self-importance and self-sufficiency. We spend our lives accumulating status, rights, and accomplishments to make ourselves big; Jesus says the kingdom belongs to those willing to become small. The death of self includes this glad return to childlikeness — laying down our grown-up pretensions and recovering a humble, trusting dependence on God. Greatness, it turns out, is not measured by how big you make yourself, but by how willing you are to become small and depend like a child.
- Am I pursuing greatness by climbing rather than becoming small?
- What grown-up pretensions of importance do I need to lay down?
- Can I come to God with the empty hands of a dependent child?
Lord, I chase greatness by making myself big, accumulating status and achievements. But you set a child before me and call smallness great. Help me become like a child — lowly, dependent, empty-handed before you — and find the kingdom belongs to such as these. Amen.