DAY 4 — CHILDLIKE (Part I of II)

One of Kent’s favorite photos from his early childhood.

Dear fellow disciple,

I keep a picture of myself as a toddler—not for nostalgia, but as a reminder of where discipleship actually begins:

Low.
Humble.
Teachable.
Dependent.

And so it is with you.

The journey of sanctification does not begin with strength.
It begins where “I did it my way” finally ends.

Christ did not say, “Become accomplished.”
He did not say, “Become impressive.”

He said:

“Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

And later—after teaching His disciples to abide in Him—He said:

“Greater works than these shall ye do.”

One is the gate.
The other is the fruit.

You do not do greater works to enter.
You do greater works because you have entered.

Childlike is not childish.
Childlike is Christlike.

And it is the foundation of all spiritual power.

The Doctrine of Christ Begins Here

You may be tempted to think of the doctrine of Christ as a sequence—beliefs to accept, ordinances to complete, behaviors to master.

But the doctrine of Christ is not merely a checklist.

It is a pattern of becoming, outlined recently by President Oaks:

• Faith
• Repentance
• Baptism
• The gift of the Holy Ghost
• Enduring to the end
• And—often overlooked—becoming as a little child

That final phrase is not poetic garnish.
It is the condition that makes everything else possible.

King Benjamin described this yielding with sobering clarity:

“The natural man is an enemy to God… unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh as a child—submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.”

This is not weakness.
It is alignment.

A child does not pretend to be strong.
A child trusts—and does as instructed—by the one upon whom he or she is dependent.

Yielding Is Not Passive — It Is Powerful

To yield does not mean to disappear.

It means to subdue—to allow God to do in you what you cannot do alone.

This is why yielding feels threatening to the natural man.
It feels like loss.
Like surrender.
Like risk.

In truth, it is the doorway to transformation.

Christ Himself defined His gospel this way:

“This is the gospel which I have given unto you—that I came into the world to do the will of my Father…
Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.”

Becoming as a little child is not the end of the path.
It is the beginning that makes the destination possible.

Why Everything Else Waits

No framework works without this.
No discipline sanctifies without this.
No miracle endures without this.

Until the heart yields, knowledge inflates.
Until the heart yields, obedience becomes transactional.
Until the heart yields, even good works quietly serve the self.

But when your heart yields—

when pride softens,
when my way loosens,
when performance is consecrated—

Christ begins a work that no mortal discipline can produce.

He converts.
He reorders and enhances desire.
He teaches from the inside out.

This is where discipleship becomes real.

Your Singular Weakness — and Why It Is a Gift

You may think you have many weaknesses.
Most people do.

But when you come unto Christ, He does not catalogue your faults.

He shows you your weakness—singular—one mote or beam at a time.

Not weaknesses.
Weakness.

That weakness is the natural man—the untrained will within you:

the fallen nature that is an enemy to God,
carnal,
sensual,
devilish,
inclined to act apart from Him.

This is the weakness the Lord speaks of when He says that if you come unto Him, He will show you your weakness—and then make weak things become strong.

Notice what He does not say.

He does not say He will remove the weakness.
He says He will make it strong.

That should cause you to pause.

Tomorrow, in Part II: what happens when the will is trained, redeemed, and lifted.

If this spoke to you today, I’d love to have you along for the journey.

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Tomorrow: Part II of II — From Low to Lifted.