When our older child, Clare, was about three, she began to refer to the sanctuary at church as the “Speaker Room” because of the large speaker array that hangs over the chancel. She absolutely loves to come to the Speaker Room and sit in the pews. Sometime when she and I are at the church together during the week, she likes to put on our worship producer’s headset and pretend she is the one leading the church in worship. (She also tells me that her prayers are shorter and more fun than the ones the pastors lead on Sundays.)
Jesus knew about the innocent faith of children. He knew that children are willing to accept God’s love—and even more His forgiveness—without second-guessing their own worth. Children will often ask the hard questions that we adults want to ask the Almighty but don’t because we feel silly or wrong for asking questions of God at all.
Jesus’s comment that “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” does not mean that we can only receive salvation if we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior during our childhood. Instead it points us toward the need to approach God with a mindset of innocent faith. We need to be willing to ask God the questions that are on our hearts and be able to receive the forgiveness that the Divine offers us, doing so in the same way children accept gifts on their birthdays. Most of all, we need to be ready to answer those questions when asked by our own children or by little ones in our church family as a whole.