As I grow older, I’ve discovered that life is supposed to be simple, but we always complicate it, and I often wonder why. Children are simple, and Jesus taught us to become like children. He said,
“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 18:3).
Whenever Jesus begins his statement using “Truly I tell you,” he wants us to take this statement seriously. It means we must put it into practice and never take it lightl...
As I grow older, I’ve discovered that life is supposed to be simple, but we always complicate it, and I often wonder why. Children are simple, and Jesus taught us to become like children. He said,
“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 18:3).
Whenever Jesus begins his statement using “Truly I tell you,” he wants us to take this statement seriously. It means we must put it into practice and never take it lightly. I am also intrigued by the words “change and become,” as if childlikeness is a state of maturity for us to attain. That’s very profound and ironic.
When we were young, we couldn’t wait to grow up, but after growing up, we lost our childhood simplicity because we made life complicated. So Jesus wants us to change and become like children again. Otherwise, we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
So, what takes away our innocence? That reminds me of a story about a group of scientists experimenting on monkeys. They put five monkeys in a room with a ladder in the middle. Then they hung a bunch of bananas above the top of the ladder.
As soon as the monkeys saw the bananas, they climbed the ladder to get the bananas to eat. But before they reached the top, a sprinkler would get triggered and spray water on them. So, they rushed down, and the sprinkler stopped spraying on them. They went up again and got wet again before reaching the bananas.
After several failed attempts, they stopped climbing the ladder. Then the scientists swapped one of the five monkeys with a new one. The new monkey would immediately climb the ladder to obtain the banana, but to his surprise, the other four would pull him down. The new monkey couldn’t understand because he had never experienced getting sprinkled. After a while, he also stopped trying to climb.
The scientists then swap another monkey with an old one. As always, the new monkey would rush up the ladder, but the other four would pull her down. Remember, one of the four had never experienced getting wet, but he joined the original three to pull the new monkey down.
The scientists then swapped the monkeys one by one until all five monkeys were new. None of them had experienced getting hosed. But none of them ever tried to climb the ladder to reach for the bananas. None of them knew why. It became a tradition.
That experiment tells us about life from multiple dimensions. From one perspective, it tells us that those who had failed in life would discourage you from trying to fulfill your dreams. From another perspective, the new monkeys are like innocent children, but society passes its baggage on them and complicates their lives.
Everyone is carrying a heavy burden and has lost their childhood innocence. We have lost our childhood dream of reaching for the stars. Heaven becomes so far away. Jesus tells us that heaven is still attainable if we change and become like children again.
In other words, we have made life complicated, but Jesus is telling us that life is simple, don’t complicate it. Based on today’s scripture lesson, we will examine how to change and become like children—how to make life simple and keep it from getting complicated. Let’s begin!
