Child Greatness

You are commanded to become as a little child.

You are also commanded to be great,  impossibly great, as great as Christ.  Be ye therefore perfect.

These commandments do not contradict.  They are one commandment.

Think about a toddler and a border collie.  At some point they have roughly the same intelligence and social ability.  At some different point you might say they are roughly equally useful.

But they won’t stay equal. The child will grow.  The child and the border collie are both small and ignorant of many things and helpless to function in human society, but the distinguishing characteristic of the little child is that it will not stay that way.

To say become as a little child is to say realize that you have vast growth and potential ahead of you.  Becoming as a little child means you know that this is not the stopping point and what you will become compared to what you are now is as being an adult compares to being a little child.

Imagine a statue group.  Here in marble is crouched a little child. Next to it a marble youth in the posture of rising. Finally in marble a full adult, a man fully upright.

But what’s this? Beyond the child is a tiny little figure.  It’s an adult human.  The divine child is a stage beyond that.