Abandon

“Jesus called the children to him and said, ‘let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’” (Luke 18: 16-17)

I am looking at this verse with new eyes today. When Jesus says, “let the little children come to me,” I used to think he was speaking about the pre-schoolers and elementary kids, but you have to look at the passage in context. The next verse sheds new light when it says “anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” When Jesus is saying “let the little children come to me,” he is talking to all of us, not just the babies. He wants all of us to come to him like a child.

The Greek word for “let” in the passage can also mean “abandon.” Jesus wants us to “abandon” whatever brings us down, draws us away from him, and he is telling us that this is an individual decision. We must come to him ourselves; we have to release our spouses to him and our children. We can’t push our sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles to come to him. In a sense, we also have to “abandon” those dear to us so they can hear Jesus’ voice themselves.

But one of the most difficult things for us as moms to do is to abandon our children to God.

We birth them.

We love them.

We feed them.

We teach them.

We hold them.

We scold them.

We encourage them.

We direct them.

But there are times when it seems like they quit listening, and nothing we say or do matters anymore. We need God to take over.  There’s no choice left, but to abandon them to Jesus.

I find it to be a difficult and helpless place to be.

So we abandon them to the Lord and pray they will make wise decisions. We pray God will navigate them off the wide path over to the narrow path.

We pray they too will have a close encounter with Christ like we had.

We pray for their safety and protection because once they drive, we don’t have control over their well being anymore.

We pray they will go to Jesus when he says, “come.”

Who do you need to abandon to Jesus today? Do you have a child you need to release to Christ? Have you lost the little child within you?

Jesus said, “let the little children come to me.” It’s time to crawl up into your Abba daddy’s lap. (LBW)