As I was stretching at the end of my workout, I captured this photo:
If you look closely, you'll see that the carseat is turned over on its side.
Moments before this photo was taken, though, this wasn't the case. The carseat was right-side-up and Titus was playing with it. When suddenly...he put too much weight onto it, causing it to fall over, and causing Titus to take a tumble backwards.
The fall scared him for a second. He had to figure out whether or not he was hurt.
But he didn't stay on the ground. He wasn't scared away from ever playing with the carseat again. He realized he was fine, sat back up, and crawled right over to the carseat and kept on playing. That is when I took the picture.
Jesus said this in Mark 10:15: "Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."
Biblical scholars say that this passage is primarily about status. In this time, children were of the lowest social status. Jesus is teaching that to be great in God's eyes is upside-down from what it means to have status in the eyes of this world.
This is true, but I think Jesus's statement goes deeper. We have so much to learn about faith from children.
As Titus got right back up and proceeded to play with the carseat, he taught me a lesson.
We often fear failure. This fear manifests itself in multiple ways. One way is that we never try. If we don't try, we can't fail. Many people live their lives in this state of paralysis.
Another way is that we never try again. We are so scarred from the pain and shame of our past failures that we don't want to put ourselves at risk to fail once more.
Titus failed. But he didn't let his failure stop him from trying again.
Pretty soon, he will start walking. He will fall over and over again. But he will keep getting up. Eventually, he'll get pretty good at walking. Then, he will even start running!
If he let his failures stop him from trying again, he would never progress.
The question in life is not whether you will fall. You will - that's a guarantee. The question is whether or not you will get back up. Whether or not you will try again.
Keep on fighting.
We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.
Romans 5:3-4
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Cute little Titus