F. Scott Fitzgerald’s little novel, The Curious Case of Benjamin, tells the story of a man born old who ages backward. He gets younger and smaller until he’s finally a baby. Of course, this is ridiculous and impossible. That’s not how nature works. But perhaps it is how life in Christ works.

We often describe the Christian life as growing in Christ. Churches, including ourselves, use that phrase to encourage members to join Bible studies, attend worship, etc. However, Jesus frequently describes Christian life differently. We aren’t called to grow in Christ but shrink in Christ.

In chapter 10 of Mark, Jesus again points to little kids as the ideal disciple. He even says, “Unless you receive the kingdom of God like a little child, you will in no way enter it.” Then he picks up the kids and blesses them. See Benjamin Buttons. 

The disciples thought they were strong, smart, and perfect candidates for hanging with Jesus. They rebuked the parents for bringing their babies to an expert-level theology class. Jesus shrunk them and rebuked them for keeping little people from Him. Jesus was not admiring the kids’ innocence or gullibility. He was pointing out their smallness, weakness, dependence, and foolishness. They can’t even pretend to be big and strong. They didn’t even bring themselves to Him. They had to be carried.

That’s what we are in God’s eyes. Before this episode, Jesus shrunk the Pharisees, who thought they were righteous, by pointing out their trespass against God’s law. Jesus does that a lot in the Gospels. He makes people feel small in terms of their own righteousness. Right before the episode with the children, Jesus shrunk the Pharisee’s belief in their righteousness by removing their loopholes and exceptions regarding divorce and marriage. You never leave Jesus feeling big.

The more we hang out with Jesus and listen to Him, the more we get smaller, and He gets bigger. Only when we experience our impossible unrighteousness can we hear and trust His complete forgiveness. As St. Paul discovered, “When I am weak, You are strong.” St. Paul didn’t think of himself as growing in Christ but happily shrinking in Christ!

It’s okay to feel small before God. It’s okay to be honest about our weakness, sin, and mortality. Only little people get picked up by Jesus and blessed with forgiveness and eternal life. That’s the Christian life; that’s what it means to be a disciple, little children in the arms of our Savior. 

That’s what it means to be unshaken in Christ. Our hope is not in our strength as disciples but in Christ’s strength to save.