The Second Birth

How do you prepare for the second birth? You start by coming to grips with the loss of your man cave. Yes, that musty, dank, palace of mid and high end electronics is coming to the end of an era. The room where you “sweat to the oldies” and dreamed of “getting ripped” is no more. The man cave, that “last bastion of masculinity”, that you once called your own … will now become a nursery. And as you have more children each place that you call home will eventually become a place belonging to your descendants.

To make them at home in your home that obviously means a ton of cleaning, redecorating and fitting each of your former territories with all the accoutrements and paraphernalia fit for the child who is to come. And of course there is the obligatory painting project. Because with each new offspring comes the painting ritual to properly transform the drab cave into a warm and receptive room bursting with the newest ridiculously named color from your local hardware store. So the question comes down to this, “Do we choose Shimmering Sea Foam Green or Polyanthus Precious Pink?” Naturally because it’s a girl you pick the pink. I don’t think I have ever seen so much pink in my entire life! But I confess, I kind of like it.

So as the anticipation of the new bundle of joy grows so do the anxieties and fears and the worries for your new child. When you realize that they will surely not be born with three eyes and five ears you start to experience some wonderful new emotions. Just beyond our fear and worry live hope, excitement and a joy that you can hardly express because soon there will be a new baby in your life!

So how do you prepare for the second birth?

Frantically; anxiously, excitedly, joyfully!

In just a few hours my baby girl will be here and so will begin the work of shaping a life; a life that will matter, a life that truly counts, a life filled with all things good, bright and beautiful. My wife and I will be at the genesis of a new hope and we will be ready to embrace the opportunity of raising a child that honors God. My responsibility and great privilege as a Christian father is to prepare my newborn daughter for her second birth.

I hope that my daughter will do amazing things with her life. I pray that she will embrace all the gifts that God will give her and that she will learn new skills that will embolden her to strike out and change the world. Who knows what the future holds? I don’t know what she will become but I feel that she will be someone that makes a difference. Maybe she will invent some new gadget or find a new solar system. Maybe she will find a cure for Cancer or AIDS or some other disease. I believe that my little girl will do great things in this life but the greatest thing she can ever do is commit her life to Jesus.

If she becomes the worlds foremost intellectual, if she becomes an Olympic gold medal winner, even if she becomes the first woman to be the President of the United States of America, all of those pursuits will pale in comparison to the pursuit of Christ. My greatest desire for her is that she pursue a life authored and perfected by Christ.

The life authored by Christ is one filled with constant change and renewal. To make Him a welcome guest in her heart she will need to do a bit of cleaning and redecorating for the One who is to come.

She will have to invite Him in to renovate and restore each chamber of her heart to the exacting standards of God to make Him welcome within her heart. The room where she would store arrogance and pride will become a room of meekness and humility and the room where she would stash her selfish ambitions must be transformed into a suite for selfless service.

This transformation like all transformations will not be easy, but the path can be made clearer with just a little help from her mom and me. Because children learn what they live, we will need to model lives that are authored and perfected by God encouraging her every day to make her heart ready for God. Everything that offends must be offered up. Every ounce of selfishness must be sacrificed not because it’s comfortable or an easy thing to do, but because it’s necessary to make Him feel at home.

These next 18+ years will be filled with challenges and fraught with failures along the way but they are all necessary and expected in preparing her for the second birth. The years to come, just like all births, have discomfort, aches and pains, but they will all be worth it when we reach that moment of glorious joy. So today we start this renovation project and as we get ready I think Randy Travis will be the soundtrack as we work:

Down with the old man, up with the new
Raised to walk in the way of light and truth
I didn’t see no angels, just a few saints on the shore
But I felt like a new born baby,
Cradled up in the arms of the Lord

Peace and Blessings


Other Posts You Might Like:

It Really is a Matter of Life and Death - Casey McCollum

2013 Year End Benevolence Report - Don Compton

Learning to Lean On Jesus - Nic Dunbar

Image - Bob Bentley

Mind Over Matter - Madi Burnett

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