Like newborn infants, desire the pure spiritual milk, so that you may grow by it for your salvation, since you have tasted that the Lord is good. (1 Peter 2:2-3)
When have you experienced a new beginning or freshness?
How is staying fresh challenging?
How is a season of birth limited, requiring additional transitions?
When we think about a season of birth, we usually think about the beginning of life, either physically or spiritually. Yet there are so many more beginnings. Even when we consider possible spiritual beginnings, we might begin reading the Bible with a new commitment. We might begin journaling or asking more questions. We might begin a mentoring relationship or a discipline of prayer. We might fast for the first time or give up something besides food to make more room for God to work. Regardless of the content of our “beginning,” it is usually accompanied by excitement and uncertainty—excitement about the possibilities of growth and uncertainty about our abilities, direction, or method.
Birth is a beginning, which assumes a road ahead, and when we’re in the early stages, we don’t know for certain what that road will bring. We can get paralyzed by thinking the risks outweigh the benefits, because we seem to be able to imagine the results of risks but are a bit more uncertain about the truth of the perceived benefits.
We can also romanticize births, thinking of the freshness and purity of them. There are so many possibilities! It’s as if we imagine nothing came before the birth, but beginnings are part of a process. God is beyond time. He knows where we are and what’s going on in our lives—what is beginning and what is ending. He knows it all and how it fits together. He sees how an ending makes the way for a beginning and how a beginning makes way for an ending…or at least a transition. The entire process is His, and we can trust Him each step of the way.
Learn or experience something new today. Watch for God to reveal something to you, either something new or something that confirms who He is and how He’s providing for and guiding you. Ask a question. Read God’s Word in an unfamiliar translation. Reach out to a stranger and begin a possible friendship. Serve with generosity in an area that seems a bit daunting to you. Keep your eyes, mind, and heart wide open.