The days were like empty canvases just waiting for the proper imagination to come along with a head full of color, ready to paint a portrait filled with emotions, hopes and dreams. These were the days of our youth…days that began at the crack of dawn and ended just moments before our mothers became worried about us. They were days filled with creative expression and void of the dreaded “have tos” and the “can’ts.”
In the middle of these days my buddies and I would find ourselves playing out our fantasies on the basketball court or on some abandoned baseball field. We became our heroes on those days. In our minds we became Michael Jordan, Ken Griffey, Jr. or Joe Montana. We would play our fantasies out as long as reality held true to our imaginations. But if a basket was not made, a homerun not hit or a touchdown pass not caught…we lived in this wonderful world where that didn’t matter. One shout of the two most magical words in our universe made everything new again in our minds. “Do Over!” I yelled. Never was a “can’t” or “have to” uttered by our comrades, but the “do-over” was granted…thus the homeruns were hit, the last second baskets were scored and the touchdown passes caught.
How much of the childhood that Jesus so desperately urged us to hold on to have we forgotten? How much of our language is filled with talk of “have to” and “can’t” while we leave behind the world where “do-overs” were allowed? How many of us would shun the child who wants a “do-over?” So why do we shun ourselves when we are so desperately in need of one? Isn’t it because we have made rules more important than spirit of the game? Isn’t it because we must get things right the first time or we won’t have the chance to get them right at all?
When Jesus saw the children walking by Him he said (and I believe he said it with some satisfaction and relief in his voice)…”The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these!”
There is probably nothing that Jesus said on this earth that was more pregnant with meaning than those words. How many ways do children teach us? We couldn’t begin to describe the ways. Yet I think one of the meanings of Christ’s statement here is that children represent a relationship filled with “do-overs.” They don’t consider mess-ups a mess-up…rather it is an opportunity to try again…to paint their imaginations out on a clean canvas.
The new year represents a lot of opportunities for “do-overs.” But one of the major “do-overs” needed this day is the renewal of relationship between the child and The Father. So in this New Year make it your aim to remember who you are and who He is. Learn to run in the fields where children play again. In doing so, you might learn what it means to live in the kingdom that children belong to.
Glimpses 
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