NOTES for Mat 18:1-5

When the Lord gives us a child as an example, He says that our task for attaining the Kingdom is to turn and become like children. What, then, is the main difference between an adult and a child? In particular, it is that a child trusts his parents without any conditions or reservations. He may not understand the necessity or see the meaning in words, prohibitions, and requests, but he trusts. The path of growing up for any person most often passes through a gradual increase in disobedience, rejection of the parents' experience, and accumulation of one's own.

In our relationship with God, we too often find ourselves facing things we do not understand, things the Lord treats as given and does not explain very much. We must protect life, we cannot kill, lie, or betray, we must love one another, and the more complicated a concrete life situation becomes, the less ready we are to trust God, and the more often we say, "and why exactly should I?" In such situations, truly childlike behavior is to turn to the Father and accept what He proposes that we do or not do.