God's Gift, A Baby

GOD’S GIFT OF A BABY

By: C. Mason Davis

A couple were about to have their first baby. I was standing just inside the door next to her husband, hearing her scream, which made him unbelievably nervous. He kept saying to me, “Oh, she’s gonna kill me for this.” She started screaming again as she was giving birth and yelled, “I can’t do this…it’s too hard!” Just then a nurse who was in the room, leaned towards her, and said, “Oh honey, this is the easy part. What’s hard are the next 18 years.”

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE

Psalm 8:2, “Through the praise of children and infants you have created a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.”

It’s great that the Lord has plans for us, but do we always follow those plans? There’s a lot of responsibility to this scripture. Jeremiah 29:11 reads, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” It’s not up to God to raise your children for you, but for you to raise your children in the way that God has planned. There is a roadmap to these plans, and it’s called “The Bible.” It is both the mother and father that will teach their child of life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. Most importantly, the child will learn from the parents that God is love; God is great!” Proverbs 22:6 states, “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old, they will not turn from it.”

You would think that coming out of the nation of slavery, being liberated from Egypt would be the hard part. No! You would think that coming into a land promised to you where there were already people living in the promised land would be hard. No! Part of the judgement of those people already living in the promised land was that God was giving their land to someone else. That was part of God’s judgement on those lands of Canaan occupied by those who had chosen not to believe in God. You would think that would be the hard part. Oh no…they’re just coming to the place where they were led. You mean that coming out of Egypt and causing the Red Sea to part and becoming free from Pharoah was the hard part? No! You mean that crossing the Jordan and facing all of these foreign nations and their armies from behind every tree and every hill, that’s not the hard part? No! This is the hard part…and it starts now. In Deuteronomy 6:4-9 says, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” This is God’s word for all of God’s people. Hear it! Believe it! Live it!

The visual of this passage is chiseling. The way that an artist would chisel out a statue from a block of stone. That’s the image. Teach your children! Chisel your children! Do this so that they’ll recognize that the Lord their God is one is the thing that you talk about all the time. Being a parent is hard. Discipling those who have just committed their lives to Christ is hard. Matthew 10:18 states,“Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.”

It's easy to lash out at your child when they do something wrong. It’s easy to punish them rather than turn the other cheek. It’s easy to blame them when anything goes wrong or gets broken. Never mind that the vase that was broken was placed too close to the couch or edge of the table where it could be knocked over easily. Was it the child that placed that lamp in that place? No! You need to learn to forgive. That’s hard! Learn to forgive your children when they make mistakes because their mistakes are your mistakes. I was raised in the belief not to sweat the small stuff, and that it’s all small stuff. We are not perfect, and neither are children. In fact, children are less perfect because they are new to the world, new to life, and still in the early learning stages of life. Stop expecting your kids to be perfect! Just accept the fact that letting go of perfection is hard.