{"id":233,"date":"2012-07-18T10:18:15","date_gmt":"2012-07-18T10:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meditations.kafkasworld.com\/dir\/?p=233"},"modified":"2012-07-18T10:18:15","modified_gmt":"2012-07-18T10:18:15","slug":"recovering-the-child-within-through-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2012\/07\/18\/recovering-the-child-within-through-christ\/","title":{"rendered":"Recovering the Child Within\u2026.Through Christ"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Recovering the Child Within\u2026.Through Christ
\nCopyright 2010 by Shea Oakley
\nAll rights reserved<\/p>\n

There is a luminosity about childhood. For many of us no other time in life was as full of peace and happiness, even joy, than our earliest years. This, I believe, holds true whether we were raised in religious or non-religious homes. There is something in the very nature of childhood that lends itself to what might be called a natural knowledge of and openness to God. Perhaps it is our innate awareness of this reality that has led adult theologians to speak of an \u201cage of accountability\u201d, the moment when children have their first recognition of the difference between good and evil in their own hearts and first know the need, at least dimly, to consciously receive Christ as personal sin-bearer. Before that moment it seems they have a kind of moral innocence, and with that an innate affinity for God.<\/p>\n

Whatever one might believe about \u201cAge of Accountability\u201d theology no one, it seems, is able to retain the carefree nature of childhood into adult life. Often this is because childhood itself became \u201cproblematic\u201d when abuse of various kinds or other hardships weaved themselves into our early existence. But even those who were nearly always happy as kids will tell you that life became harder, much harder, as they grew up and the heavy responsibilities of adulthood bore down upon them. It is no surprise, then, that one will often hear parents tell their children to fully enjoy their childhood today\u2026.while they can.<\/p>\n

Paradoxically, as Christians we are taught to give up \u201cchildish ways\u201d, but not childlike faith. Whatever the challenging nature of our mature years we are not to become cynical, disenchanted and doubtful about both the goodness of God and the goodness of the lives He has given us. Rather we are to retain the trust of a child towards our Heavenly Father. The Bible also seems to teach that the capacity for awe and wonder that seems natural during pre- adolescence is not something we can permanently do without, especially when it comes to pondering the divine nature. The question is how do we take this counsel and apply it to our lives in the years between young adulthood and old age? How do we recapture some of the cardinal joys of what some literally call the \u201cwonder years\u201d?<\/p>\n

For this author the gateway has been, so far, two-fold: first the conscious grieving of losses I\u2019ve known in both my adolescence and my adulthood and second the seeking of God in nature in the aftermath of that grieving. It as if my heart has finally had enough darkness bled from it by the grieving that I can now look out at the earth and sky and catch glimpses of the earth and sky of my childhood, now three decades behind me. At the same time I sense that the way I perceived reality then and the way I am beginning to perceive it again is, in some sense, also a replacement of the temporal perspective with the eternal. It seems that maybe the sublime awe and wonder I knew 30 or more years ago are exactly the same as I\u2019m rediscovering now and that both are tastes of the reality of God, a reality that stands outside space and time.<\/p>\n

I realize that this may sound more than a little mystical. For that I cannot apologize. I\u2019m also realizing that without this kind of \u201cmysticism\u201d my Christian life would continue to be impoverished in a way I\u2019m no longer willing to accept. The recapturing of childlikeness is an incredibly powerful thing and I believe it is God\u2019s will for blessing me at this juncture in my life.<\/p>\n

Perhaps He desires the same for some of you forlorn lost children sojourning in adult bodies out there. If so, I hope you might find your own way back to a new childlikeness that incorporates the best of the old and, in Christ, goes beyond it. If you do what you may experience is both renewed faith and a blessed taste of deep Heaven.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recovering the Child Within\u2026.Through Christ Copyright 2010 by Shea Oakley All rights reserved There is a luminosity about childhood. For many of us no other time in life was as full of peace and happiness, even joy, than our earliest years. This, I believe, holds true whether we were raised in religious or non-religious homes.… <\/p>\n

Read more Recovering the Child Within\u2026.Through Christ<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-christian","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6GkOA-3L","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":568,"url":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2014\/09\/11\/a-fact-of-history\/","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":0},"title":"A Fact of History","date":"September 11, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright by Shea Oakley All rights reserved One of the most strongly held tenants of those who disdain religion is that Secularism is the true promoter and guardian of human progress and happiness. An example of this deeply entrenched assumption is the idea that the historical advancement of human rights\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christian"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":230,"url":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2012\/07\/17\/infinite-love-and-the-human-condition\/","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":1},"title":"Infinite Love and the Human Condition","date":"July 17, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Infinite Love and the Human Condition Copyright 2010 by Shea Oakley All rights reserved The answer to the entire existence which we have found as Christians is found in this great truth: that, through saving faith in Christ, we have received the love of the one Being in the universe\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christian"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":502,"url":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2014\/04\/17\/identity-and-the-words-of-others\/","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":2},"title":"Identity and the Words of Others","date":"April 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright by Shea Oakley All rights reserved Entering into the identity given us by God often requires that we receive His knowledge of our true selves through others. In and of ourselves we are not able to see who God made us to be in Christ. We need the perspective\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christian"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":370,"url":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2013\/04\/25\/forbearing-love-and-the-christian-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":3},"title":"Forbearing Love and the Christian Life","date":"April 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Forbearing Love and the Christian Life Copyright 2013 by Shea Oakley All rights reserved We tend to try to change others by showing them the error of their ways. This is especially true when the error in question is one that hurts us in some way. When someone\u2019s behavior has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christian"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1263,"url":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/30\/the-myth-of-the-humorless-christian\/","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":4},"title":"The Myth of the Humorless Christian","date":"April 30, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright by Shea Oakley All rights reserved Theologically conservative Christians have often been portrayed in popular Western culture as puritanically humorless, as individuals who have allegedly added laughter to the list of sins about which they are said to be obsessed. Frankly, this is another fallacy put forth by those\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1026,"url":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2017\/04\/12\/lies-we-believe-and-their-end\/","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":5},"title":"Lies We Believe….and Their End","date":"April 12, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright\u00a0 by Shea Oakley All rights reserved It is easy for us to believe numerous lies about ourselves, even not very well-crafted ones. In many cases we believe them simply because they were repeated often to us by others. These are the lies we may have constantly heard told about\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}