Almost a year ago, my son and his wife received a very welcome
telephone call. A sweet little baby girl had
been born and her birth mother had voluntarily terminated her parental
rights. As licensed foster parents, they
were offered the opportunity to take her into their home and eventually adopt
her. The court date for finalizing that adoption is happening this week and our
family is so excited and happy to see her become a permanent part of our family.
This last year has been a joyful time of watching this little
person grow and change. When she first
came home, like all babies, all she did was sleep, eat, mess her diapers, and
look around a lot. Now she is a
perpetual motion machine: crawling, pulling herself up by grabbing the furniture,
clapping her hands, waving bye-bye, and babbling up a storm – just to mention a
few of her skills. In fact, after today I’m
convinced that she’s a genius. Her mother called out from my kitchen for us to
come and look. She was standing up at the bi-fold doors of my pantry and had
figured out how to pull the knob and open the door to the magical, forbidden
place that we always pull her out of when we have left one of the doors open.
I thought about all this development a few days ago. The church
talks about people being “born-again”, as we should. The problem is many people never get past the
“sleep, eat, mess their diapers and look around” stage. They remain newborns. How sad it would have been if our little one
was still in that phase almost a year after her birth. Though God loves us unconditionally, how
tragic it is when His people don’t grow and develop so that they can fulfill
the amazing future that He imagines for them.
I have been a Christian for over 40 years, but do I act like
a 40-year-old Christian? I don’t know
the answer to that question because it’s
hard to know what that looks like. I’ve
met people who have been saved only a few years whose maturity is amazing and
others who are still grabbling with basic principles of the faith years after first
coming to Christ.
In looking at my own life, I have had several long periods
of spiritual stagnation. During some of those times,
I was running from the call on my life and was dabbling in all the things the
world called “life”. Other times I was going through times of complacency, more
involved in my own interests and cares than in the life of the Kingdom. Even now, when I really want to become who
God wants me to be, I sometimes get distracted and neglect those things that I
know I need to grow.
What have we provided that has made it possible for this
precious baby to make these strides? We
have fed her, bathed her, clothed her, played with her, talked to her, encouraged,
and celebrated her. We have provided her
shelter and times to rest. We have introduced
her to new experiences and taught her new things by modeling them for her.
In the same way, God has made provision for our growth
through His word, His Holy Spirit, and His church. We have the food of the Word, the cleansing
of the blood of Jesus, the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Through the Church, He provides us with a
place of safety and shelter, as well as a place to experience Him and learn how
to serve by watching others operate in their gifts and callings.
The difference between us and a newborn is that we have the
presence of mind to know how growth works and have the decision-making ability to
avail ourselves of all the resources that God has given us. I encourage you and
remind myself to continue to grow, change, learn and become mature and
productive.
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