Be still and know…… Psalm 46:10

Seeing the 18-week-old baby moving his fists and arms on the ultrasound screen thrilled me.  What a gift technology can be!

As a volunteer counselor at our local Christian pregnancy resource center, I’m privileged to be present when gals come in for a scan.  Afterwards, I spend some time with the mom to talk over her options. The father of the baby, if he comes to the appointment as well, meets separately for a while with my male counterpart.

As Christians, we are upfront about our hope they will parent. But we aren’t afraid to educate them about abortion, what it does to the baby as well as to them. We also offer on-site counsel about how adoption might work.

To the extent that they are willing to listen, we explain who Jesus is and why they should care.

The day after this week’s volunteer shift at the ‘preg center’, I was out back on the patio for my ‘morning meeting’ with the Lord.  Psalm 46:10 popped up in a cross reference.

What is it that God wants us to know that takes being still and releasing our grip? I sighed thinking about my futile and fruitless attempts to control circumstances around me so I’ll feel secure. 

Then I pictured a baby safe in a mother’s womb, receiving all he needs from the placenta via the umbilical cord. How ridiculous and fatal it would it be for the baby to disconnect from mom and try to do pre-natal life on his own?

Bingo! and back to Psalm 46:10. That’s at least one truth our Father wants us to know. He planned and created each one of us to be needy, even during the 40 weeks of our life within our moms. After a mother pushes her baby out through the birth canal, that child still depends 100 % on ‘life-support’ from his parents. 

Likewise, we Christians having been ‘born from above’ into God’s kingdom also require sustenance. But the spiritual kind.  Like the newborn, we can’t provide what we need to bloom and grow. Jesus painted a picture of just what kind of life support he has planned for us. As a branch ingrafted into Jesus, our Vine, we receive heavenly nourishment without which we wither. We risk being another case of ‘failure to thrive’.

How we are to conduct our pilgrimage, journeying toward our true Home with God, is analogous to life for the preborn and newly-born baby.   But I forget that fact almost every week. So, fall back into thinking I CAN and should attempt to control what scares or threatens me.

It takes stopping and getting still in order for me to re-calibrate how I think about God. Isaiah offers another reminder:

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance (turning back to God) and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength”…..Isaiah 30:15 NIV