The No. 1 Way To Beat Spiritual Numbness

Posted On: 03/23/2012

As I started writing this post, I realized that I was writing a book. There’s simply no way to hit all the angles, all the roots, all the causes of spiritual numbness in a single blog. Not with any sort of depth, anyway. So I decided to write about the direct opposite of spiritual numbness: Childlikeness.

In children, the idea of ‘spiritual’ hasn’t even surfaced. In children, numbness is nonexistent. In children, it’s all about relationship.

See photo and caption at www.jesusconfidential.com.

Do we ever categorize children as being aloof, apathetic, asleep, callous, comatose, dazed, dead, detached, disinterested, immobilized, incurious, indifferent, lethargic, paralyzed, uncurious or unfeeling? Not that I’ve ever heard. So it’s safe to say that children cannot be pegged as numb. In other words, if we who are older clothe ourselves in childlikeness, then we will smile and laugh and play away our numbness.

How? Let’s start by looking at Childlikeness Over Adultlikeness (a paragraph I’ve added to our Guidelines for Owning Your Faith).

Childlikeness Over Adultlikeness

Children trust Daddy; adults question authority. Children wonder at Daddy’s BIGNESS; adults think of their own ‘bigness.’ Children brag on Daddy; adults hold their tongue. Children say ridiculously real things to Daddy; adults speak Christianese. Children love hanging onto Daddy’s leg; adults avoid awkward closeness. Children cry over wrong things they’ve done; adults get defensive. Children hang onto Daddy’s every word; adults listen sparingly. Children believe Daddy can do anything; adults are skeptical about everything. Children believe they can do anything with Daddy; adults think chasing dreams is irresponsible. Children want to be with Daddy; adults want to be places that benefit them. Children believe a lot and act on their beliefs; adults believe a lot but don’t act.

Don’t miss the enormous implications inside these short sentences. It would take me 100 posts to write all the horrible ways I’m more like an adult than a child. But that’s just the start. Even if I could eliminate my adultlikeness and become mentally-clean this very day, I would still slide back into my old, dead ways—if I never pursued something different.

Childlikeness is an active step. A choice. A lifestyle.

It’s about praying without stopping (1 Thessalonians 5:17), bringing even the little parts of our lives before God. It’s about passionately trusting those nudges we get (that don’t contradict Scripture), even if it means looking foolish. It’s about unashamedly praising God every minute, every day, for every mountain, every sunrise, every friend, every moment, every miracle, every breath and every hug in front of any person, any relative, any stranger, any president, any anyone who does or doesn’t know the love and power of Christ the KING.

It’s about falling on our faces because our God is so big, so mighty, and how could he ever love us?, and why would he ever save us?, and O, our God is good, so amazingly good, that we must simply bow in front of him and kiss his feet.

It’s about being real with God, really real, unafraid to sincerely talk to him, listen for him, weep in front of him, and speak words that are natural to our tongue. It’s about opening his Word, meditating on his love, his grace, his power, his commands, and what it means for us this day, this hour, this week.

It’s about believing—believing big, believing in the impossible, believing that what He calls you to, he’ll equip you for; where he puts you, he’ll use you; where he wants you, he’ll provide a way.
And it’s about acting. Doing our part. Praying because he commands us to pray. Going because he commands us to go. Loving because he commands us to love.

It’s knowing. That. God. Is. REAL.

That’s childlikeness.

Relationship vs. Head Knowledge

The other day, my friend and I were talking about Relationship and Head Knowledge and how they relate to Childlikeness and Adultlikeness. This is something we wrote on my white board:

See infographic at www.jesusconfidential.com.

Natural thinking might say that the graph above is the ‘ideal’ Christian (yeah, like that’s ever happened). The moment we are saved, our active relationship and active knowledge of God increase in perfect harmony as we draw near to God (I add the word “active” because we tend to forget that true relationship and true knowledge leads to action). But we know this isn’t how it works. We all struggle. And at the forefront of those struggles is being childlike in an adultlike world.

With that in mind … substitute “Childlikeness” for “Relationship” and “Adultlikeness” for “Head Knowledge” in the graph below. This is what you get:

See infographic at www.jesusconfidential.com.

As the years go by, we know what God says in the Bible. We know all the verses. We know about the Father. We know about the Son. We know about the Holy Spirit. We know about love. We know about faith. We KNOW about everything.

But we are numb. We are wastelands. Spiritless. Alone. Lost. The relationship is gone. The head knowledge is rampant. We are zombies.

Is it because we, God’s children, have lost our childlikeness? Is it because our faith looks nothing like that of Hebrews 11, which shows us that active faith does things out of a knowing:

• That everything God says is true (v1) • That He spoke the universe into existence (v3) • That we must trust Him in holy fear (v7) • That He can do the impossible—even through us (v11) • That He deserves our worship until our final day (v21) • That mistreatment is better than sin’s pleasure (v25) • That He has greater value than all else (v26) • That strong men and women are nothing compared to Him (v27) • That through His power, we can do crazy things (v29-30) • And that He turns our weaknesses into strengths (v34)?

Brothers, sisters: I love you all so much. Do you feel the child inside you right now, caged up, teary-eyed, beaten and bony? What else do you see?

Childlikeness is true faith, so I want to ask us all: Are we living with the Spirit of a child? Perhaps within this question is the answer to that numbness; a way of escape from the wasteland; the key to reigniting the Holy Spirit that God has placed inside you.

So as the dear pants for the water, let your soul pant after God (Psalm 42:1). Right now. Like a child.

1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: What now? Even this post is JUST head knowledge if we don’t somehow apply it to our lives. How do we do that? How do we live with more childlikeness? How do we live with REAL faith? What does it look like in our lives? I’m not talking about a comprehensive plan. Just day-to-day stuff that moves us closer to Jesus, more engaged with the Holy Spirit, more intimate in our relationship with God. Please share, brothers and sisters. This is worth owning.

via Caleb's site www.jesusconfidential.com

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4given88 Reply to this	Jun 23, 2012 3:34 pm Wow, this really spoke to me
atty Reply to this	Apr 10, 2012 7:27 pm nicely done in all of it