Childlike v. Childish

[_moksha]

I think of child-like as being open to the wonders and meaning of existence beyond the mundane.

[_honorentheos]

Hi Consig,

When I read your OP, my first thought was how little the lesson manual seems to have changed in the few years since I have been to an LDS ward house. I can't imagine how many times you must have heard/given a version of this topic in a lesson.

My thought, though, is that most LDS probably do not guess at what it means to be like a child, in a positive sense. It's spelled out in the Book of Mormon as I recall, in a Seminary Scripture Mastery Scripture no less. It was ingrained into my brain, anyway -

Mosiah 3:19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, 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.

I guess that is where the relational aspects of the lesson came in.

But as an adult member, I always cross-referenced this scripture with another from the Bible -

1 Cor. 13:11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

It's interesting that Jersey Girl's stories touched on this later point as the one trait we most often associate with maturation - the ability to conceive of other minds and develop empathy. And then act on it in a positive manner.

Anyway, class disruption over.