Babies and Spiritual Growth
Comfort. Don’t lie. You know you like it. You know you want it. We all seek after it, consciously or not.
Change. Growth. These are things that require effort. They require struggle. Hardships. Suffering.
I am on the cusp of becoming a father for the first time. Now, mind you, for the last eight years I have been a father to an untold number of orphans here in Romania.
If you told me today that tomorrow I would be responsible for twenty more orphans – that I would be their father, would have to provide for them, instruct them, protect them – I would be ok. It wouldn’t be anything all that new for me.
But the thought of this one little, tiny baby – who should be here any day now – is enough to shatter my little world. It’s scary. What do I do with her? I don’t know anything about babies. Hardened, damaged orphans…ok, I can handle that. A fragile little baby…this will require change, growth, struggle.
Now, don’t get me wrong; I will rise to the occasion, as hundreds of millions of fathers have before me. But this experience has brought to light my reticence to change and grow.
But it is precisely change and growth that God demands. Our sanctification is His concern. Because He loves us, He cannot leave us in our harmful, sinful condition. He must continue to purify us daily and make us into the likeness of His Son. Otherwise, He wouldn’t be a loving Father.
God is calling us to follow Him. He is calling us to allow Him to purify us, to sanctify us.
Many times, we are just too comfortable to hear.