Nurturing the Life Within #1

Mother’s Day has made me think of lessons I learned during pregnancy about nurturing the life within. (I need to thank my aunt who sent me a tape during my pregnancy days of a Mother's Day talk she gave at her church. Some of these insights are definitely hers. Thanks Marnie!)

The thing about pregnancy is this: as soon as you find out you are pregnant, your perspective about everything changes. And I mean everything. Food. Drink. Books. Money. Free time. Home décor. Certain types of recreation. Rest. Suddenly your entire focus is on protecting and nurturing the new life inside yourself. I know this is true for prospective dads as well. You immediately become super motivated to do whatever it takes to prepare a home and a future for your child.

There are great lessons here to be applied to nurturing our spiritual lives which I thought I would blog about for a few days:

The first, of course, is priority and persistence. Most pregnant women and soon-to-be dads make preparing for the new life an immediate priority. They get as much information as possible as soon as possible and they begin to act on that information right away. Even when they don’t yet know everything about what to expect, they begin to act on what they do know. For example, during the first few weeks of that first pregnancy you didn’t know much about delivery and you didn’t yet know how to breastfeed. But you probably knew you needed to drink milk and you did it, right? When sometimes the thought of eventually giving birth or raising a child overwhelmed you, you turned your focus back to what little things you could do today to prepare for the baby and you did them.

Try that approach with your spiritual life. We all tend to overwhelm ourselves sometimes with thoughts of “What if God wants me to face this or give up that…” Or, “I am such bad Christian. God can never use me.” This is pretty similar to thinking during the early days of pregnancy, “I can’t possibly endure labor and delivery” or “I am too irresponsible to be a good parent.” Don’t focus on scary future unknowns. Focus on what you know you need to do now. Read your Bible a little everyday. Talk to God everyday. Making these small, easy things a priority and persistently sticking to them—rather than wringing your hands and procrastinating—will result a healthy new life.