As I watched I saw toddlers singularly focused on climbing, playing, investigating, eating, and sleeping. Every act was focused entirely on one thing. There was no thought of self, no concern for what others might think or how others might react. There was a palpable sense of the infinite watching them: everything is interesting, everything is welcome, and everything is possible. All things are new and exciting, waiting to be explored and discovered.  They were quite simply alive with living.

How sad it is that the age of innocence and wonder pass us by so quickly. We become self-conscious as we lose ourselves to the world that surrounds us, gathering concerns for what others might think, what possessions we can attain, how successful we can become. We lose ourselves in pursuit of that which gives us pleasure and in doing so we lose so much that is good, we lose our way, we cease to be alive with living.

We live in a culture that is becoming increasingly more secular; that openly disparages those that hold fast to a belief in God, that we are all His creations, and that we must keep faithful to His commandments. So many see themselves as the center of being, that the purpose of life is self-fulfillment and nothing lies beyond this life. Life itself is meaningless, with little or no redeeming value. They live with the creed of “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”

To live as Christians is never easy. It takes tremendous courage to resist the siren call of the secular world and to take up the cross of Jesus. It has been said that that which we possess possesses us. To follow Jesus we must become childlike, rid ourselves of all that possesses us, and live as Jesus commands us to do. Every so often it would be good to pause for a moment and recall the child that is in you. Who has the greater joy? Who is living life to the fullest? Who is more like Jesus?