I am suppose to be Child-like but NOT a Child

In my church I work with children and I am always mindful that Christ said unless we come to him as children we won't enter the kingdom of Heaven. To me this means that I stay hungry to understand how I am suppose to live, that I feast on God's knowledge and learn by his teaching me. I learn by asking questions and imitating him.  I trust him to take care of me and guide me into my destiny. It means believing God knows what is right for me to do.  This is child-like faith, and we need that.  In the illustration in II Peter on child-likeness there is also direct instruction in the Bible concerning growing up.  We are suppose to take the posture of children so that God can grow us up. There are many lessons to be learned and not forgotten as a child, but we are suppose to take that child experience and format it to a humble adult lifestyle. This is why I want to be child-like, but not a child. 

I was looking at my son today and couldn't figure out why he wanted to put two toys together to pretend they were a microphone when he has a microphone.  I thought "why would he insist on pretending when he could have the real thing?"  Suddenly God showed me something that I read in my bible only minutes before observing my son's puzzling behavior.  In      I Corinthians 13:9-12 it talks about how when you grow up you put away childish things and that when God reveals things to us fully we have no more need for the dim gropings of our previous understanding.  As I was asking myself why my son insisted on substituting the imaginary for the real thing, God asked me "why do you do it?"  Ouch!!!!  There are things in my life that are substitutes for what God wants for me, and it is just the same as what my three year old was doing.  He was making something for himself rather than taking what was already given him, and the toys were not even close to being the equivalent of what I got him. God has something for us so why not let go of the toy and take hold of the real thing? 

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