“Adults who leave their childlikeness behind don’t get real, they get real old

A thought by Leonard Sweet, (2014-02-21) from his book, The Well-Played Life: Why Pleasing God Doesn't Have to Be Such Hard Work (p. 145). Tyndale Momentum. Kindle Edition.

We as we get older make life so difficult, don’t we? But that is not God’s plan.

Think about God’s creation. Did He create the beauty around us for children or for all of us to enjoy? Did He create your family so you would work, work, work, or to enjoy, enjoy, enjoy? I love doing stuff with and for my family. Here is that word again, it’s all in our perspective.

Real old

I was thinking about when I was a young boy and of how we would play that we were working. When does that need to stop. Why can’t we enjoy our work again like when we were kids? But it seems that our task as adults is to take the joy out of life. I mean we send our kids off to school not to enjoy the priviledge of learning but the task of succeeding. You must realize your full potential instead of the joy of stretching, creating and grasping new potential within us. We rob our kids and in turn ourselves of the joy of growing, of learning, of maturing.

God has given us life for His and our pleasure. We were created in a garden. It was a fun place until Adam and Eve messed it up. Satan is the one who robbed us of the pleasure of life. Let’s get back to the joy of the Lord by depending on Him as a child does to his father.

I like how Leonard puts it, “Doing God’s mission in the world is not work when you are living in the pleasure of God.” And he also says, “It is not the ‘oughts’ of Christ that constrain us, Paul said, but the ‘love of Christ constrains us.’ [1 Corinthians 5: 14, KJB] When work flows from faith and is done for the love of God, it feels joyful and not direful, liberating and not limiting.”

So are you enjoying your life as a child or enduring it as an adult?

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