Here's what I've experienced in a few short years of being a mother: it is quite a process to bring new life into the world. The road to pregnancy, the pregnancy itself - waiting, growing, pain, stretching, repeat - and then the process of labor and giving birth. Some days, when I think about having another kid, I remember these things and quickly retreat. 😂 I find myself muttering some sort of exasperated prayer - "God, I love having babies, but jeez...why can't this just be quick and easy and painless? Where are the storks, anyway? Can't they just bring new babies to my doorstep?"
Existential prayers aside, I simply can't believe that as advanced as modern medicine is in 2024, we haven't yet (unless I missed it) found a way to skip this gestation process...for any species.
The hard truth is this: no storks are coming 🙁 and we must endure the process. There is no other way.
And actually, so it is with faith and spiritual life, too. Growing faith is a [tough] process. Here's what I've found and experienced: we love the idea of God. We want to be spiritual. We want that God to do things in our lives. We want God to work in us and through us, we want him to heal us, we want to change the world, we want to be free of anxiety and worry. We want to see God doing something, and we pray to that end. But then, what we actually often receive is...more real life. Hardship. More waiting. Pain. An invisible process.
We throw our prayers to the ceiling: "God, are you even there? I thought this faith thing was supposed to make everything easier and better."
But that isn't what the Bible seems to suggest. If anything, it may even suggest the opposite.
"Take up your cross and follow me..." (Luke 9:23)
"Blessed are those who mourn..." (Matthew 5)
"In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted..." (2 Tim. 3)
"Carry each other's burdens..." (Galatians 6:2)
"In this world you will have trouble..." (John 16:33)
Paul shares a relevant metaphor in Romans 8 about the process that we all are going through in order to bring new life into the world:
“All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us...These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” Romans 8:22-28, MSG
Here's the truth: The times that my faith has grown the most have been in the times of pain and waiting. The times I showed up to pray even when I didn't feel like it, the challenges, the trials, the times when I wondered why and lobbed my prayers toward a God I wasn't so sure of anymore. Through that process, my faith has actually, miraculously, grown. I'm beginning to think that maybe the process is the whole point.
In the Romans 8 paraphrase by Eugene Peterson there, the waiting is what "enlarges us." The process of pregnancy grows us in more ways than one. It grows us physically (ouch) but it also grows us in awe and wonder and trust and faith. At the beginning, we can't imagine how all this nausea could actually become something. But after we wait a bit, we begin to see the reality that...maybe there is something really happening/growing in there! The longer we wait on God’s Spirit, the more we have the opportunity to grow...in faith, in wonder, in awe. "Maybe God actually is doing something!"
Growing faith is a long process, but it's in the process and in the ups and downs of life where we find what it's really like to "take up our cross" and follow Christ into suffering. Earlier, in Romans 5, Paul says it like this - we can even learn to "glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope."
This of course, preaches much easier than it lives. The process of laboring to bring new life into the world is hard.
When I was going to have my first baby, I read everything I could get my hands on about how to do so. All the books, all the podcasts - well aware as I was that nothing could prepare me for what I was about to go through, I was committed to being as prepared as I possibly could be. I found that what most of my books were trying to convey is this simple fact:
We are conditioned to believe that childbirth is extremely painful and contractions are the actual worst. But understood biologically, contractions are simply your body doing exactly what it’s supposed to be doing. The pain is a sign that your body is moving your baby down and out for you. It’s doing all the work, and is a perfectly normal part of the process. I realized then, as the birther, that I had a tough choice to make. Either I could: view those contractions as OF THE DEVIL! (it's hard not to)
and fight back against them with all my might,
with clenched fists and gritted teeth - OR I could surrender to this invisible process, trust it, breathe, let it happen,
and recognize the truth of the matter - I am not in trouble
and my body is doing exactly what it needs to do.
If you're a guy and that's TMI, sorry- but I think there is a profound invitation in this analogy to see this fact:
what God is doing in your life may not always feel great faith is often hard and new life is often a process.
In our fast food culture, we are so quick to want the easy route. I'll take the stork option, please. Whenever something painful does come at us we say, "there’s the Devil again tryin' to get me!" We fight back against pain and suffering in any way we can, with clenched fists and gritted teeth, "NOT TODAY, SATAN!"
Instead of being open to the idea that perhaps pain is exactly what God wants to use in my life to bring something new.
If we could only...
surrender to this invisible process,
trust Him,
breathe,
let trials come,
and recognize the truth of the matter - I will not drown in these waters
and my God is doing exactly what He needs to do
to bring new life out of me.
No storks are coming, but God is waiting to be found in the process. May you find Him there.
תגובות