I've been reading the story of Henri Nouwen, a renown theologian and christian leadership expert. After 20 plus years of world travel, teaching, preaching and publishing books and literature, He felt led to stop it all and go serve in a community for mentally handicapped people.
The transition was life changing to say the least. Nouwen states: "The first thing that struck me when I came to live in a house with mentally handicapped people was that their liking of me had absolutely nothing to do with any of the many useful things I had done until then. Since nobody could read my books, the books could not impress anyone. Since none of them ever went to school, my twenty years at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard did not provide a significant introduction.
Nouwen goes on to relate that not being able to rely on the skills that had proven so practical up until that point, made him feel very naked. "I was suddenly faced with my naked self, open for affirmations an rejections, hugs and punches, smiles and tears, all dependent simply on how I was perceived at the moment.
As I read his words I reflect on prayer. How many times do I approach God in a professional christian manner? How many times do I go through learned processes, when really all He wants me to do is humble myself, become vulnerable and open. Jesus said it first, and said it best, "suffer the little children to come unto me," then, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."
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