new life

Last night, I went to the hospital to visit my friends who just had their first baby. This was only the second or third time that I've gotten to hold a newborn, and there's simply nothing quite like it. 24 hours previously, this baby boy had been in his mother's stomach, and now he was out in the world with the rest of us.

My friends called me a sucker and a baby hog because of how much I held him. I held him twice, and probably for an hour between those times. He had such amazing features. We were jokingly calling him Wolverine because of the length of his finger nails, pretty long for a newborn. He also had this hair on his shoulders that his dad told me would go away soon. His cheeks were the softest things I've ever touched. A few times he opened his eyes to check me out a little. Thankfully he didn't cry though he looked set to a couple times.

My other friends' 7 month old cried when I was patting him on the back on Sunday, broke my heart. Making a child cry is the last thing I would ever want to do, especially when they're that young. His mom assured me he was just having a bad day, but I still felt guilty for making him cry.

Back to the newborn...he literally has his whole life ahead of him. What kind of kid will he be? If he's anything like his father, he'll probably be a fun-loving little guy with more than a hint of orneriness. What will he be when he grows up I wonder? I praise God that he has two loving parents who are still together and who are in it for the long haul.

There is something about new life. It parallels the spiritual life pretty well. There are verses in the Bible that tell us we must be born again and that the old has gone the new has come. Christ died to give us a new heart and a new life. He died to save us from sin and the slavery associated with it. New life is inspiring, whether it's a new born or a new life in Christ. Both are worth living well, although I have to argue that one is much more fulfilling than the other.

His mercies are new everyday, and we get to walk in that light. In Him, there is eternal life to be found, starting now, not in some distant future. I truly believe God will restore and renew this earth. I don't believe we go somewhere off into the cosmos when this life is over. The Bible talks about God coming down from the heavens to us, to His people. In this life there will be untold suffering and hardship, but when we rise again with Him as He did on the fateful Easter morning, there will be no more suffering and no more tears. I eagerly await that day, and pray for it's speedy arrival. How glorious it will be, when we are fully reconciled and restored to God and His original plan. I don't believe we can ever achieve that in this present reality but only when He decides it's time to come back. For some reason, I don't think He'll come back in my lifetime. God's timetable is a lot different than human timetables, and if it took almost 2,000 years for Israel to reestablish itself as a nation; what makes us think it won't be another 2,000 years before He comes back to reclaim us as His own?

In the meantime, we are called to care for creation and take cues from creation on creating new life and sustaining life. We are called to evangelize, yes, but this should come as naturally as breathing. I don't believe in tracts that you hand out to complete strangers, I believe in developing relationships with a person first before we have any right to speak into their lives and share our beliefs with them. I've heard that if 40 people started discipling 3 people, in 27 years all of America would be discipled, and not too long after that the whole world. There is strength in small things, and you're able to concentrate your efforts much better. Sometimes I think mass evangelism is a get out of jail free card, not requiring much sacrifice except the ability to speak to large crowds but not doing the difficult part of investing into their lives and truly discipling them. Christ calls us to make disciples, not just converts. We've lost that notion somewhere along the way, and it's time to go back to our roots. We must make a genuine effort to live among the world around us in an incarnational way, not take people out of their culture and bring them to church. Rather, we ought to bring the church to them. Throw parties at your house, invite others over for dinner and expect nothing in return. Serve the world around you, whether that's at your job or at the local soup kitchen or somewhere globally. Get out of your comfort zone and start dying to yourself in order to truly live for Christ.