Childlike Trust

The heart of living a Christian life is to know and believe we are first loved by God (1 John 4:19) and allow this knowledge to influence how we live. Our interior attitude shifts from what “we can do” to what “He can do” in our lives. Fully living in the spirit of adoption fosters a childlike trust in God’s loving care and providence. It is following Jesus and walking in His footsteps (1 John 2:6) as He, the Son of the Father, lived in loving communion and ordered every action and step according to the Father’s will.  

As adopted sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, we, too, are called to live in the same relationship. At our baptism we were immersed into the very life of the Most Holy Trinity—”I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” As the Catechism teaches that “by sending his only Son and the Spirit of love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange” (221).  

The theological virtue of charity gives us a sharing in God’s own love and enables us to love as He loves. There arises in any relationship, a sort of connatural or shared knowledge between people who love each other. By the Gift of Wisdom, God shares with us His own knowledge; we see God’s plan of the world from within. We now see things from God’s perspective, able to grasp the whole and penetrate to the heart of the matter. From this new perspective, we are able to live with a childlike trust in God’s loving plan and respond with joy and confidence, “Abba Father, I love you, too.”

The effects of the Gift of Wisdom:

• Delights in spiritual things; experiences the sweetness of God
• Sees God in every aspect of creation
• Judges things and actions according to eternal wisdom
• Focuses on what truly matters, able to set priorities
• Devotes time to daily prayer and the sacramental life