Childlikeness

Perhaps God allows us "rose colored glasses" in childhood so that when we're grown-up and sober we can still draw upon some tangible sense of the better country mentioned in Hebrews 11:16, that is, of Heaven. For adults that sense, if not by now fully ignored, is rarely felt, and that only when reminiscing on the rosy years.

Childhood is the wonder-anchor, and in some ways the closest to Heaven we get before we die. Its vivid fancies and deep, exciting dreams are not silly. In fact, of all motivations I think they're probably truest to What Should Be. Passing years can jade a person and force him to believe that What Currently Is is What Should Be. So myths become useless, and one treats his own imagination like a cartoon, some airy trifle not worth attention. GK Chesterton destroys this lie when he defends fairy tales in his book, Orthodoxy. There is more import in the fairy tale--or at least in the desires that drive it--than in the "rational" stale-dom of the sophisticated.

Jesus' own words reveal His thoughts on the childlike heart: "Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these" (Mark 10:14).