By Dina Aldabbagh

God.

Children are interesting to adults because of their honesty. They are not only always kind or happy — we see sides of them that are angry and selfish. And they are not these stoic beings who sit idly by and wait for someone to come and give them permission to want what they want, feel what they feel, and ask for exactly what they’re looking for. 

Children do not perform. They just are — even when that means it doesn’t paint them in the best light. Because the thing is, they don’t care to be portrayed in the best light. Society teaches them that, sure, so in time they learn. But the truth is, they don’t think about it. Their nature is not to think about how they come off, but rather to go from the A to B of exactly what they’re looking for.

This is honesty. They don’t start at A, then create a list of different reasons why they should believe they deserve it, then ask other people if they think they should even ask, then draft different ways to ask — no. They feel the desire, the need, the pull to do something, and then they go straight to B. It’s a straight line. A to B. It’s honest. There’s no hiding in there.

They want attention, so then they go up to someone and say, “Look at me.” And of course, the entire world can read, “Oh, they want attention.” It’s not lost in translation, it’s direct. It’s clear. And even something as widely regarded as taboo like asking for attention is void of shame for children, because they’re not viewing it as good or bad, just as what’s present in them. They have a desire, so they ask. They feel a pain, so they cry. They get angry, so they let themselves be angry. They don’t yet put those pressures on themselves that say, “And why should you believe you can ask for this? And why should anyone care that you’re angry?” 

Adults often think that if they allow themselves to be angry about something, that’s audacious. Then they’re assuming that people should care if they’re angry. But children intuitively understand a secret that adults forget: you don’t do things in the context of putting the world at a contract to fulfill it or respond in a certain way, you do things simply because it’s what feels best to you in the moment. Even something like anger, it may not feel good per se, but it feels honest. And honesty feels good — it’s relieving. 

Adults are often so afraid to be seen with audacity in their pocket. “Who told you you got to have that? Who told you you’re so deserving?” The Lord of this universe, actually. You see, audacity is often misconstrued by adults. We often take it to mean that because someone does something, it means the world is obligated to act in response to that. But children understand that, no, it doesn’t. You can feel things and want things and ask for things and show up in a certain way without putting a contract on the world. “If I dress like this, they must compliment me,” “If I ask, it must be given,” “If I need, people should jump to fulfill it,” and — “If they don’t…that means I was wrong to do it in the first place.” 

Many adults live by the idea that if it’s not given willingly — offered up by someone else — then it’s not for you. Children don’t see it like that. They ask for things, and if they’re not given it, they let go. They move on. They stop exerting energy in areas that aren’t surmounting to anything. Why? Because they don’t take it personally. Adults do. The audacity adults are so afraid to have feels so heavy to them because they tie it to their worth. If they don’t get it, it was always wrong. If people don’t react in a specific, exact way, they should’ve never done it in the first place. 

That’s a contract children don’t put on the way they show up. They just show up. Just in the way that feels honest for them. Just in the way that feels best for them in the moment. They don’t require you to act a certain way because they already feel deserving to be themselves fully. They already have the audacity.

But not all children, if you notice, act with audacity. The children who have, since their earliest memories, been mishandled by the adults in their lives act in a much more timid way. They are afraid to ask for what they want or say they need something or show up honestly in their emotions. They have lost the audacity because whatever adults in their lives perpetuated this belief that they shouldn’t show up that way.

Adults often do this to each other as well. Well, hurt adults do. “Don’t ask for that. That’s too bold. Why do you think you deserve that?” You’ll notice people like this feel timid in themselves. They don’t feel like they have the right to be a human being who has needs. They feel there is something shameful in asking for help or for being honest about whatever they desire. They think asking for attention is embarrassing. They think doing anything without the approval of others is automatically wrong.

There’s another way, and I brought you the example of children as a great focal point. Children show up honestly. Not “correctly,” but honestly. And here I put the question to you, what is the “correct” way to show up? What are you allowed to wear? What is okay to ask for? What is okay to need? Should you even want anything unless it’s already given to you? What’s “correct”? What’s too bold? What’s foolish? What’s too audacious?

If we always look to others to approve of our every action, desire, hope, or emotion, then we give away the power that God has given us. Since we were children, God has already said, “You are allowed to feel these things, that’s why I gave you emotions. You are allowed to want things, that’s why I gave you a desiring heart. You are encouraged to ask, that’s why I tell you to pray.” The exact things God put in us, we learned at some point that they should be shameful. At what point, I wonder, did we learn that it’s a shameful thing to say, “Hey, can you pay attention to me? I want to matter to you.” Kids do it all the time, until they stop. Until it becomes taboo. And how funny is it that the request works more often than it doesn’t. If you say, “I want attention,” people are happy to give it. Imagine a child asking for your attention, your presence — you don’t get mad at them for it. You’re happy to give it. The opportunity to love someone is a joy. 

At some point in our lives, a request got rejected, a hope didn’t manifest, we got disappointed. And at that point, we didn’t understand that disappointment was not denial, but guidance. Disappointment wasn’t saying, “This is never for you,” it was saying, “This specific source isn’t the one to give you this” — whether that be love, compliments, attention, commitment, support, etc. God was never denying the desire or the need, just saying, “Not from here.” But the fear in our hearts told us, “Stop asking. This isn’t for you. It’s too bold of you to ask.” 

We came to fear that the audacity in our requests resulted in punishment. That saying you wanted something specific came with the hard lesson of learning “Life isn’t fair, you get what you get.” But the reality is, you just gave up before the loop fully closed. Imagine you’re running a marathon — 26.2 miles — and you run the first five miles without a water refill station. Five miles in and your water supply is starting to get low. You may think, “Oh wow, this path isn’t safe for me. There are no water refill stations. If I keep running, I’m going to get dehydrated because I won’t have water along this path. I better get off.” So you don’t finish the marathon. But what you don’t realize is that you simply can’t see all the miles ahead, and this path right here has already been constructed for you. The water refill stations, the snack stations, the aids — they were already preplanned where they were going to go. And the people in charge of the planning knew you wouldn’t need water until mile six. 

Don’t get off your path too soon. Don’t move from the empowered place God put you in just because it looks like you’re being turned away. A couple rejections from the world don’t prophesize your future. A couple looks of disapproval don’t signify your unworthiness. People often look to the audacious with disapproval because they don’t understand. They don’t understand from where they got their audacity. And audacity, when you don’t understand where it comes from, can feel offensive. Especially when they deny themselves that exact level of empowerment. The people who will disapprove of your audacity are the same ones who will look to you for guidance later. They only disapprove because they don’t understand why you feel so emboldened to be that way when they don’t. 

But remember that God is the one who emboldens you. Since you were a child, he showed you, “You’re allowed to act like this. This is your natural state of being.” And unfortunately we often forget that as adults. So whenever you forget, you can just look back to the basics for guidance; you can look to children.