I lie on my bed and watch my nephew crawl on the floor and wonder what it must be like to experience things for the first time as he is. Sure, I still experience firsts but nothing like his. Still under a year old, he’ll crawl, stop to sit upright, and then just stare at objects. We think babies are so silly but consider seeing a ball for the first time—nothing has ever moved this gracefully before. It catches your eye and you must have it, as if anything appealing is just awaiting your ownership. You move toward it and when you bump it, it rolls away. Through much frustration you finally contain this spherical beauty and begin to celebrate just as it flies from your hand only to perform a new action of bouncing from the ground. An incoherent exclamation escapes from your mouth as you witness one of the most basic actions for the first time.

I wonder what it must be like not to be able to wave one arm in the air without the other doing likewise. There are countless things happening around you and you aren’t able even to control the simplest of motor skills. It’s frustrating because every time you try something beyond your capability you end up crashing. Baby steps are something babies can’t bypass. Yet, when adults are expected to enter something with the mindset of baby steps, we have difficulty voluntarily stepping as a baby would. We believe we can already hop and skip only to discover that we’ll fall all the same.

When I think about Jesus working with His disciples, I think it must have been like working with infants. It must have been so exciting for the disciples even though they probably often didn’t understand what was happening. At times, things upset them. They stepped forward once in a while to take control just to discover their legs were still a little too wobbly. There were times they rebuked people thinking they knew what they were doing and in turn were rebuked by Jesus (Mark 9:38-40; 10:13-16). And there were times they tried to take matters into their own hands and ended up disappointing Jesus (Mark 14:46-49).

Different people approach faith in different ways. Some walk into it with the perfect infant mindset while others take their first steps as if they’re already grown. Some approach it as if it’s a set of rules while others use it as the status quo. Some approach it as a tradition while others use it as a means by which to consider themselves right. Each has its difficulties and faults but only one does it in the natural order—only one is actual faith.

We experience the firsts of faith and often times it scares us. We want to stand up and run past it all but our faith won’t allow us because we have to learn to walk all over again. When we try walking and begin falling, as should be expected, we begin reaching for security often times in places we shouldn’t while claiming it’s all faith. We begin slapping the label of faith on things that aren’t faith as if to convince ourselves we have it. Maybe we seek security in rules or rightness when faith really has nothing to do with either.

We’re often afraid of faith’s requiring us to bend in ways we wouldn’t normally bend. We become lazy and declare that we’re relying on faith while never letting it register that faith requires us to venture into places physically and especially mentally we’d prefer not go. When we fall, we don’t lie there and call it faith; we get up and try again and call it faith. Faith isn’t intended to solve problems for us but to help us as we try to solve problems ourselves. A child knows precisely where to direct faith, but it’s not so easy for us.

I think about how Jesus told us to be like children and how our faith has to be like theirs. I think about how the only way to approach our Father is as a child raising one hand and not being able to control the other from rising as well. We don’t have the minds of infants, so when we fall, we have to ask ourselves whether we’ll raise both hands for help to stand so we can try taking another step.

What we have to recognize in the faith of a child is that it never stops seeking growth. If a child falls when trying to walk, the child may cry but gets up and has at it again and again until actual walking is the final product. Unless there’s some handicap, all children go through this. Each learns to walk with this faith. Despite the fact that they fall and bruise, they continue to try, resulting in growth through faith. Faith won’t grow for us. Sure, faith is necessary but in order for faith to be developed further, we must take those steps that anticipate falling. The mind must be engaged.

I think about how during infancy, being anywhere other than in your parents’ arms or at least in their presence is utterly terrifying. Faith like that takes some consideration. I wonder how many Christians today truly consider absence from God to be terrifying. I think about what comforts me and its relation to God and then I wonder how much further I must go in order to reach that faith that finds comfort and satisfaction in no other than God. That has to be the faith that picks me back up when I’m exerting everything I have to take those steps where I know I’m likely to fall.