a guiding hand

Your hand, at some point in life--hopefully--has been a guiding hand to someone. 


Definitely if there are children in your life. Or young (perhaps I should say, younger) believers who look up to you as a mentor. 


Reading Matthew 18:1-10 with Search the Scriptures made me see, for the first time, that our attitude and duty towards young children are similar to those towards young believers. In a sense, you could call them mentoring relationships--friendship based on a tacit understanding that one learns and is guided by the other. Friendships with a great capability for mostly one-sided influence. 

How loving Christ's words are in this chapter, and how piercingly aware of the condescension, pride, and carelessness that can warp such mentoring relationships, making them more destructive than nurturing. 

Studying Christ's words was a reminder to:

1. Be humble in accepting, appreciating, and learning from them (v 4-5, 10)

Humbly learn from them--the childlike spirit of trustfulness, which is so easily patronised as naivety, is really something incredibly rare, and a great honour to have, in contrast to the cynicism that being street-smart cultivates. 
Don't abuse or despise it. No matter how silly it is, don't make them feel foolish for being confiding. No matter how trivial their secret is--or how great a joke it would make--don't betray their trust, or treat it lightly. 
(I'm still learning this! I'm afraid my sense of humour is not always very helpful...)

For younger believers--don't feel supercilious over their eagerness, energy, and exuberance. Rejoice with them! And instead of seeing it as an instance of their immaturity, (as we generally do with eager-beavers in any other field) humbly recognize it as a reminder of how far you have fallen away from your first love.

And these are just two of the most obvious areas.




2. Give them respect. See them as individuals. (v10; note the repetition of 'one of' in v 5 and 10!) 
As a mentor, respect may not be the first thing you think of giving to your--how shall I say this? mentoree? 
And all the more so, we mustn't neglect it.  
This could be something as simple as listening, a lesson that could take a whole lifetime to learn. 

In William Deresiewicz's book A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me about Love, Friendship, and the Things that Really Matter, he describes what he learnt from reading Mansfield Park--the importance of listening in a friendship: 

"Austen...knew that our stories are what make us human, and that listening to someone else's stories--entering into their feelings, validating their experiences--is the highest way of acknowledging their humanity, the sweetest form of usefulness." 
 
This, in my experience of working with children, is entirely and wholly true. You'd be surprised; kids don't actually want you to entertain them so much as they want you just to listen to them. Not just with the engrossed grown-up's spasmodic 'Umm' and 'Really?' but with the same respect, interest, and engagement you would give to another adult. 

Even if you're dying to laugh. 



3. Be purposeful in loving, guiding, and caring for them. Take your mentorship and relationship with them seriously, just as you would take serving the Lord in more glamorous or 'grown-up' ways. (v 5) You may only have these three kids to teach every Sunday, or that one teenager who confides in you. You are no less significant (and probably more) to them, than if you had twenty. 

And as Christ so clearly warns, be careful we do not cause them to stumble. (v 6) As teachers, mentors, and friends, we have been given a great trust. 
I need to keep in mind how receptive children are to your approval and criticism, once you have won their love and friendship. A careless comment or impatient remark can make a much bigger impact than you would think on a child who loves and looks up to you. 

Similarly, in your relationship to a younger Christian. Be especially careful of imposing your opinions! Having--sadly--done this before with children, I daren't think of the consequences this could have on a spiritual level. 


Oh dear, how depressing this is! someone may be saying at this point. All these warnings, as if I needed any more to think and worry about, when I'm just struggling with the time and effort costs of friendship! 


Yes, we fall short most of the time. We make mistakes. 
But as Jerry and Mary White's book, To Be a Friend, (a helpful and insightful guide on friendship!) notes, 
'We can only do this when our lives are being transformed by God.'



And as another comfort to us discouraged souls--God intends friendship to be a two-way blessing. 
Even mentoring friendships. 



'We gain and we give. We gain what we do not expect or deserve. We give what cannot be bought.' 

(To Be a Friend, by Jerry and Mary White)