How do we grow up? Well, we learn through life.

For example, have you ever gotten that off  feeling when things seem to be going really well, for far too long? It’s just an uneasiness we do to ourselves to somehow brace our hearts and our minds in case things take a turn for the worse.

It’s the buffer we unknowingly erect around the things we desire most. 

If you have ever felt this or done this, you’re not alone. Most of us experience this, regularly. We may not recognize it because most of us don’t walk around analyzing ourselves all the time. But we will catch it in moments, if we pay attention even slightly—especially those moments punctuated by delight, love and good things.

For example, have you ever caught yourself gazing at your beautiful sleeping child as she dozes off to dream, feeling completely content and satisfied? And then all of a sudden a doubt creeps in. Will she be safe? Will I lose her one day? How would I handle that if I did? What does this world have in store for her, and how can I protect her from that pain? You walk out of the room no longer in the contentment you once held while standing there. You walk out with a mixture of what most would describe as an unsettledness, or even low-level fear.

Or have you ever found yourself sharing that loving look with your significant other and sensed a deep level of knowing—a warmth—only to have a very different feeling follow—almost immediately, almost instinctively? “Will this relationship last like this?” you wonder without really wondering at all. This thought is practically at the spirit level, deep in the sub-conscience of our soul. Our bodies recognize it and often respond physically and emotionally without our minds even being aware. A sea swirls in the abyss within you, muddling the initial feeling you first shared.

Or what about the project you completed at work that gained you so much admiration and attention and productivity for the business, or school or wherever you work? Have you ever caught yourself enjoying thoughts of achievement and satisfaction only to have hints of concern creep in about whether you can repeat it, or will things go backwards now? Or will what you just accomplished even last? Will your peers and boss hold you to too high of an expectation moving forward and you’ll disappoint them after this? You smile when they praise you for the accomplishment, but your gut doesn’t join you in that smile—not entirely.

Have you ever walked through your new home or new apartment with utter joy, thrilled with your decision and grateful for the new place you have—only to have a seed planted and wiggle around annoyingly in your soul? Will you be able to keep the house or apartment? What happens if you or your spouse has an accident or loses a job, or gets sick and can no longer work in order to pay the bills? 

If you answered yes to any of those, which most, if not all, of us will have answered yes, you are not alone. We are not alone. We are all human. We do these things, think these thoughts, erect these walls because deep down inside something has taught us that good things cannot go on forever. 

Perhaps it’s a carryover from Adam and Eve who lived a life of blissful peace and luxury only to be quickly uprooted and even more quickly booted out of the garden. Perhaps their intrinsic fears trickled down to us through our own inherited DNA. Who knows? However we got it or learned it, it exists. Within each of us exists an awareness that life is frail, love is fragile, health is never promised and ongoing peace is often a priceless carrot we seek but to little avail. 

Life is our master teacher—and one of her most-taught lessons involves instructing us how not to trust. We learn like Wendy does, over time—gradually. 

We learn to grow up. 

God knows that. Jesus knows that. That’s why He specifically told us to “become like little children” or we could not fully enter into the richness of His kingdom on earth (Matthew 18:3). Jesus made this analogy so clear because He knew that our doubts, suspicions and self-preservations would hold us back from belief. 

He knew that a faith to move mountains had to be pure. Like a child’s.

He also knew that very few of us, as adults, would have that kind of faith at all.

At least not in all areas of our lives. Most of us have great faith in certain areas and yet no faith in others. Learning to trust in those areas we desire the most in one of the secrets to answered prayer.