How to Have Childlike Faith in God: 5 Practical Steps

Somebody told me once that they missed believing in God the way they did at seven years old — no arguments to win, no disappointments to explain, just a Father who was obviously there. Then they apologised, as if that longing was somehow immature. It isn't. Jesus put a child in the middle of a room full of grown men and said this is what the kingdom looks like. If your faith has gotten complicated, tired, or armoured up with reasons — this is for you.

Why this is genuinely hard

Nobody stays a child on purpose. Life does it to you — bills, diagnoses, betrayals, the years where prayers seemed to go nowhere. You learn to hedge. You learn that trust has a cost, because somewhere along the way trust got broken. Childlike faith sounds sweet until you remember that children are also the most vulnerable people in any room. Being told to become like one can feel like being told to go back to being defenceless, right when you've finally built some walls. And there's an honest theological tension here too: Jesus never asked us to be childish — naive, uninformed, unable to reason. Paul tells us to grow up in our thinking (1 Corinthians 14:20). So the call isn't backwards into ignorance. It's toward a particular posture: dependence, trust, and the willingness to receive rather than earn. That's hard for adults who've had to earn everything else in their lives.

Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. — Matthew 18:3 (NIV)

1. Ask God one honest question tonight, out loud

Children ask questions constantly, without embarrassment, without pre-editing them to sound intelligent. Most adults have stopped doing this with God because we're afraid the silence that follows will confirm our worst suspicion — that no one's listening. Tonight, before you do anything else, say one real question out loud in a room by yourself. Not a polished prayer. Something like, "Are you actually paying attention to me?" or "Why hasn't this changed?" You don't need an audible answer to have done something real. You've stopped pretending you're fine, which is where children start every conversation with a parent. David did this constantly — his psalms are full of blunt, unedited questions to God, and they're in your Bible, which tells you something about how God receives them.

How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? — Psalm 13:1 (NIV)

2. Receive one thing today without trying to deserve it

Adults are trained to earn. Children take a gift, say thank you, and go play — they don't sit calculating whether they merited it. Pick one ordinary thing today — a coffee someone makes you, a text that says something kind, ten minutes of sunlight — and consciously receive it as a gift from God's hand rather than something you produced or were owed. Say thank you to Him specifically, by name, for that one thing. This sounds small. It's actually retraining a habit of the heart: that your standing with God, and your good things from Him, aren't wages. James is blunt about where good things come from — not from your performance, but from a Father who doesn't change His mind about giving.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. — James 1:17 (ESV)

3. Read one Gospel story a day, out loud, without notes

Not a study guide, not a commentary — just you, reading a single short passage from Matthew, Mark, Luke or John out loud, the way it would have first been heard: as a story, not a puzzle. Pick something concrete — the calming of the storm, the woman at the well, the prodigal son. Read it in five minutes before your day gets loud. Don't analyse it. Notice what you feel. Children hear stories before they learn to dissect them, and something in you needs to hear the Gospel as story again before it becomes argument again. This is doable on your worst week — it requires no theological training, just five minutes and your own voice in the room.

Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. — Matthew 19:14 (NIV)

4. Bring your need to God in one plain sentence

Adults tend to pray in paragraphs, explaining, justifying, hedging our requests so we don't look too demanding or too desperate. A child asks in one sentence: "I'm scared," "I want this," "Help me." Try it today. Whatever is actually weighing on you, say it to God in a single unadorned sentence — no throat-clearing, no theological caveats. "God, I'm afraid I'm going to lose my job." "God, I want my marriage to survive this." You can pray the long, careful version too, later. But start with the sentence a child would say, because it's usually the truest one, and it's the one Jesus told us not to be ashamed of.

Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. — Matthew 6:8 (NIV)

5. Let yourself be wrong about something small, today

Children get corrected constantly and mostly shrug it off — they haven't yet built an identity around being right. Adults have. Somewhere in your day, a small opportunity will come to admit a mistake, accept a correction, or say "I don't actually know" without defending yourself. Take it. This isn't about self-esteem; it's about practising the posture Jesus is actually describing in Matthew 18 — humility, low defences, teachability. You cannot manufacture trust in God while refusing every small correction from people. The muscle is the same one.

Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. — Matthew 18:4 (NIV)

When it stops working

"This feels naive given what I've actually been through."
It's not naive — it's a different kind of strength. A child's trust in a parent isn't stupidity; it's appropriate to the relationship. Yours has been damaged by real things, maybe by people who should have been trustworthy and weren't. That's grief, and it may need a counsellor as much as a Bible. Faith doesn't ask you to unlearn caution with people. It asks you to test whether God, specifically, has earned yours — and the Gospels are the place to look.

You try one step, nothing changes, and you quit after two days.
Children don't measure progress; they just keep asking, keep receiving, keep coming back tomorrow. That's the actual point being made — not that the steps produce a feeling on schedule, but that you keep showing up plainly and repeatedly. Missing two days isn't failure. Restarting on day three, without penance, is the childlike part.

You confuse childlike faith with never doubting or questioning.
The most honest children in Scripture ask the hardest questions — read the Psalms, or Job. Childlike faith isn't the absence of doubt; it's bringing the doubt to the Father instead of managing it alone. Question freely. Just question toward Him, not away from Him.

Your first week

Day 1: Ask God one honest question out loud before bed. Day 2: Receive one small gift today with a specific, spoken thank-you. Day 3: Read one Gospel story out loud in five minutes, no commentary. Day 4: Pray one plain sentence about what's actually weighing on you. Day 5: Let one small correction land today without defending yourself. Day 6: Repeat whichever step felt hardest. Day 7: Read Matthew 18:1-5 slowly, then write one sentence about what changed this week — even if the answer is "not much yet."

Questions people ask

Isn't childlike faith the same as blind faith?

No. Blind faith believes without evidence or against evidence. Childlike faith trusts a specific person — the Father revealed in Jesus — based on His character and track record in Scripture. Children trust their parents because of an existing relationship, not because they've suspended judgment. The invitation is relational trust, not intellectual surrender.

What if I had a bad childhood and "childlike" feels like a trigger word, not a comfort?

That's real, and it matters. If "child" evokes danger, powerlessness, or a parent who failed you, don't force the metaphor. Focus on the substance instead — dependence, honesty, receiving rather than earning — without the word attached. And please talk to a therapist about the childhood itself; that wound deserves more than a devotional can offer.

How is this different from just having weak or shallow theology?

Childlike faith isn't shallow theology — it's a posture toward deep truths you may not fully understand yet. A child can trust a parent's love completely without grasping the parent's job, finances, or reasoning. Likewise, you can trust God's character deeply while still studying, questioning, and growing in understanding. Depth of thought and simplicity of trust aren't opposites.

If you want to go further

The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning

As an Amazon Associate this site earns from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you.

Pesquisar este blog

Daily Faith Walk